Kuwait Treasury General Manager at Kuwait Finance House KFH Abdulwahab Al-Roshood said that the USD 490 million short-term sukuk program issued by the International Liquidity Management Corporation is an important stage in the evolution of Sukuk product. This product is sharia compliant, tradable and able to provide sources to finance corporations and governments through new mechanisms.

 He added that the corporation has recently issued the first issuance for 3 months with the participation of 8 gulf and foreign banks including KFH. He went on to say that sukuk issued by the corporation enjoys the privilege of being short term, rated as the short- term highest credit rating A-1 by the international Standard and Poor’s, contributes in enhancing asset quality for participants , in addition to being a source of good income due to its rewarding returns compared to its short term periods.

 Moreover, Al-Roshood explained that the International Liquidity Management Corporation is a new corporation based in Malaysia by 9 central banks as well as Islamic Development Bank in October 2010. The goal beyond establishing such corporation lies on the deployment of short-term Sovereign sukuk ranging from one month to one year with USD 2 billion program volume. The Central Banks participated from the following countries; Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Indonesia, Nigeria, Luxemburg, Moriches, Malaysia, Turkey. Every session of the corporation is headed by one of the central banks governors where the governor of this session is Qatar Central Bank’s.

 Al-Roshood expressed his confidence that KFH’s participation of the corporation’s businesses since establishment will add value to its efforts and its role in sukuk market because KFH is renowned in this field. KFH has issued several sukuk locally, regionally, and globally, in addition to its participation in arranging global deals to governments and corporations which contributed in strengthening sukuk’s part as a means of finance that can be a legitimate alternative to bonds.

 Meanwhile, Traders Head at Capital Market Mohammad Al-Dwaila said that Financial Islamic Markets need such kind of short-term sukuk to cover the existing gab between short-term Murabaha and long-term sukuk. Furthermore, he added that KFH’s participation among large global banks as major trader confirms its leading role in sukuk market in the regional and global levels, not to mention its part in employing its capabilities in this field to serve the Islamic financial industry and open new horizons ahead.