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AMJ partnered the Islamic Finance News in staging a successful second Oman Forum and Dialogue at the Grand Millennium, Muscat on March 7. The day-long event gathered over 150 industry players, legal experts and stakeholders from across the Middle East, Europe and Asia in an audience with the regulators to discuss trends in Oman’s fast-growing Islamic finance industry.

In the opening keynote address H.E Abdullah Salim Al-Salmi, executive president of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) announced that two private sector sukuk programmes totalling OMR 300million (US$ 780million), have received initial approval from the CMA. These sukuk programmes are the ‘first of a kind’ under Oman’s new sukuk regulation and come as the government is contemplating a second international sovereign issuance.

In a second keynote, H.E Hamoud Sangour Al Zadjali, the executive president of the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) expressed satisfaction with the pace of development in the Islamic finance segment. In the short span of four years, the combined assets of Oman’s Islamic banks and windows had reached OMR 3billion, representing a 10% market share, by the end of December 2016.

AMJ’s managing partner, Mansoor Malik, shared his insights on Islamic finance regulatory frameworks in two expert panel sessions. He stressed the need for the industry and regulators to embrace alternative investment products in order to maintain the positive growth trajectory of the Shariah compliant segment and create a vibrant and sustainable market. Malik recently advised on the Sultanate’s international US$500 million sukuk, which was privately placed and settled on 14 July 2016, as well as the sovereign’s debut sukuk and preceding corporate sukuk, the first of its kind in Oman.

AMJ’s banking partner, Marcus Pery, participated in the Forum’s closed-door dialogue on developing Oman’s Islamic financial markets, between industry experts and CMA and CBO representatives. Senior associate, Asad Qayyum delivered a workshop to students on legal and regulatory issues in Islamic finance.

For more information, contact Bernadette Bhacker-Millard