Infrastructure Financing through Islamic
Finance in the Islamic Countries
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This may be due to their balance sheet structure with shorter-term and liquid liabilities and
regulatory regimes that require higher capital requirements for long-term investments. One
option to encourage Islamic banks to contribute more to infrastructure projects would be to
distinguish between deposits and restricted investment accounts such as in the case of
Malaysia. Since the latter tend to be longer term and the investors bear the risks of
investments, these will be more suitable for investments in infrastructure projects.
The balance sheet features of nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) may be more suitable for
long-term financing. However, the Islamic NBFI sector constituting takaful operators,
investment banks, pension funds, etc. have not contributed significantly to infrastructure
development. This is partly because the Islamic NBFI sector is relatively small and most of the
larger NBFIs such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds are conventional. While a few
of the conventional NBFIs in Malaysia provide Shariah compliant financing in some
infrastructure projects, the overall Islamic financing provided by the NBFI sector has been
small. Although increasing the size of Islamic NBFI can potentially expand investments in
infrastructure projects, the government can also initiate a Shariah compliant infrastructure
fund that can raise funds from both Islamic and conventional NBFIs for investments in
infrastructure projects. This fund can be managed by the NIIB mentioned above.
Capital Markets
Since large amount investments are needed to finance infrastructure projects, the capital
market is an obvious source to raise funds from different types of investors. The country case
studies show that both government and infrastructure-related GLCs have raised funds by
issuing sukuk for infrastructure projects. While some governments such as Indonesia, Saudi
Arabia and Sudan have issued sukuk to raise funds to cover their budgetary expenditures
(which is also used in the infrastructure sector), in some other cases governments and GLCs
have issued project-specific sukuk. Indonesia and Malaysia have also issued retail sukuk to tap
into new sources of funds. However, in order to use sukuk as an instrument to raise funds for
infrastructure projects from both institutional and retail investors, the sukuk market needs to
be developed. This can be done by providing an enabling legal and regulatory environment and
a supportive market infrastructure for the sukuk market to flourish. Since issuing sukuk is
complex and expensive, it is recommended that a GLC be established (similar to Sudan
Financial Services Company Ltd.) that can provide advice on structuring, developing
standardized templates for, and assisting in the issuance of sukuk at lower costs.
Islamic Social Sector
A key untapped source that has the potential for providing social infrastructure services is the
Islamic social sector constituting zakat, waqf and sadaqat. For example, estimates of zakat
collections in the Muslim world show that it can potentially be between USD 114.34 billion and
USD 304.9 billion annually. While the promise of using these sources is great, they have not
been used extensively partly because they are not organized and managed efficiently. The
country case studies show several ways in which the Islamic social sector (zakat and waqf) can
contribute to providing certain infrastructure services. In particular, waqf has been used in
Malaysia and Saudi Arabia to provide medical services to the poor and Indonesia has issued
Cash Waqf Linked Sukuk to raise charitable funds for use in public projects such as schools and
hospitals. Similarly, BAZNAS and UNDP have used zakat funds to develop micro hydro-
electricity projects in Indonesia to provide electricity to the deprived segments of the