KUALA LUMPUR,: The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) will launch the Islamic fund and wealth management blueprint sometime this year, in a bid to firmly establish Malaysia as an international Islamic capital market centre.
The blueprint, which is formulated by the SC, will chart the medium to long term strategic direction for the industry as well as map out strategies and recommendations to strengthen Malaysia's competitive edge, said the SC.
The strategies are expected to reinforce the industry's sustainability and will include, among others, strengthening global capabilities of market intermediaries and seizing new market opportunities.
As a part of the blueprint formulation, in depth assessments of domestic and global developments of the industry, as well as, intensive engagements with key relevant domestic and international stakeholders were carried out.
Malaysia has a well-developed Islamic fund management industry, holding 31 per cent of the US$58 billion Islamic assets under management globally as at end-2015.
The industry has been a significant contributor to the growth of the Islamic capital market, registering a compounded annual growth rate of 22.5 per cent between 2010 and 2015.
Leveraging the strength of the industry, sustainable growth for Islamic capital market can be achieved by capitalising on new opportunities in the Islamic fund and wealth management segment.
In 2015, the SC approved and received lodgment of 50 Private Debt Securities (PDS) issues amounting to RM118.46 billion, 25 issues of which were sukuk valued at RM48.33 billion.
The sukuk value represented 40.80 per cent of the total new PDS issues approved.
Last year, corporate sukuk issuances represented 66.67 per cent from 76.08 per cent in 2014 of total PDS issuances while corporate sukuk outstanding accounted for 71.65 per cent from 70.43 per cent of total PDS outstanding.
Overall, the SC said sukuk issuances by government and corporates in 2015 represented 43.57 per cent of total bond issuances, whereas total sukuk outstanding represented 54.05 per cent of total bonds outstanding.
As of Nov 27, 2015, a total of 667 shariah-compliant securities were featured.
The updated list included 35 newly-classified Shariah-compliant securities and excluded 39 from the previous list issued in May 2015.
As at end-December, these securities constituted 73.86 per cent of the 903 listed securities on Bursa Malaysia.
The market capitalisation of Shariah-compliant securities stood at RM1.09 trillion or 64.09 per cent of the total market capitalisation, an increase of 7.32 per cent compared with end-2014.
As at end 2015, the number of Islamic unit trust funds stood at 193 compared with 188 funds as at end-2014.
The net asset value of these funds saw an 11.70 per cent increase to RM52.12 billion in 2015 from RM46.66 billion in 2014. - Bernama
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