DEVELOPING ISLAMIC FINANCE OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRADE FINANCING: ESSAYS ON ISLAMIC TRADE VIS-À-VIS THE OIC TEN-YEAR PROGRAMME OF ACTION

International trade has been defined as the engine of growth by international development institutions as more cross-border trade associated with more economic activity, higher employment, hence, poverty alleviation. If trade is the engine of growth, trade finance can be defined as grease for the engine. Hence, availing more funds to finance the enormous amount of international trade, counting about half of global GDP, is an important agenda for the OIC as well as many multilateral development institutions. The main reason behind the efforts to avail more funds for trade finance is to direct valuable financial resources from speculation to explore opportunities to increase international trade in a way to grease and roll the wheel of real economy. With reference to the OIC Ten-Year Programme of Action to Meet the Challenges Facing the Muslim countries in the 21st century, this research aims to introduce outward-looking, cost-effective, and informal policy options for a resilient OIC trade integration to increase international trade among OIC countries. In this regard, the first essay aims to explore the determinants of recent increase in intra-OIC trade to ascertain if it is due to policy instruments implemented by OIC organs or some other externalities. It is argued that recent increase in intra-OIC trade percentage is likely to be the product of reverse effects of oil price surge and Euro appreciation but not trade diversion effect of OIC membership. OIC membership itself alone would not increase intra-OIC trade if not accompanied with policy instrument for trade facilitation to make cross-border trade easier among member countries. However, as customs revenue constitutes the bulk of public revenue for many OIC countries, they need to be convinced about benefit of trade facilitation. Accordingly, with reference to the unwillingness of OIC countries for trade facilitation, the same essay scrutinizes the effect of tariff and WTO Customs Valuation Agreement on customs’ revenue of OIC countries. The results suggest that increasing tariffs might increase customs revenue for big countries but not for small countries. Besides, the implementation of WTO Customs Valuation Agreement does not decrease customs revenue as its indirect undervaluation effect would be surpassed by its direct effect of less incentive for tax evasion. As a crucial crop for public finances in many OIC countries and initial stage of industrialization, special emphasis is given to development of the cotton sector under the OIC Ten-Year Programme of Action. The Third Expert Group Meeting on Enhancing Production Efficiency and International Competitiveness in OIC Cotton-Producing Countries adopted the Five-Year OIC Cotton Plan of Action (2007-2011). As per the mandate of OIC, two Islamic trade finance products are proposed, one for the cotton sector through the resources mobilized with mudarabah, by proposing salam for complete supply chain financing in the second essay, and another for resource mobilization based on 2-Step murabahah in the context of international trade as an alternative to commodity murabahah, sukuk as well as mudarabah in the third essay. In conclusion, based on further findings of the survey, the questionnaire and interviews; capacity building in trade facilitation for small countries to be complemented with OIC mutual recognition agreement for standard and conformity assessment within halal food standard development; integrated single window among OIC countries’ customs; OIC cumulation system of rules of origin for market access; inward processing relief as an alternative to free trade zones; development of the cotton sector among OIC countries to address production constraints of LDMCs and 2-Step murabahah to mobilize trade finance resources to boost trade of OIC countries, particularly for LDMCs, are proposed as a part of concretely defined and well-grounded OIC trade integration framework

The rise of islamic finance: 2-step murabaha / Ahmet Suayb Gundogdu.

The Islamic finance industry should refrain from replicating conventional tools by complicated scams which hold Arabic names. There is enough room for product development within the sphere of Islamic Shari’ah. Today, the Islamic finance industry is still heavily recourse to commodity Murabaha for liquidity management regardless of prohibition of the practice by Islamic Fiqh Academia. This mainly results from the lack of a proper liquidity management alternative for Islamic banks. Although Sukuk can serve the purpose to some extent, not only commodity Murabaha but also Sukuk is not expected to underpin the Islamic finance industry for the future. In this paper, 2-Step Murabaha is proposed as a strong alternative to the popular but questionable Islamic resource mobilization/liquidity management tools. It is suggested that the Islamic finance industry healthily rise on 2-Step Murabaha. The literature review part of the paper dwells on Islamic finance in the context of resource mobilization/liquidity management. The disbursement procedures in full detail are explained for the 2-Step Murabaha transaction in a case of a Gambian importer and an Egyptian exporter of yarn. Then, the structure is evaluated to suggest the 2-Step Murabaha to be embedded in stock exchanges in order to facilitate international trade while serving the Islamic finance industry for liquidity management

Islamic electronic trading platform on organized exchange

Today Islamic finance industry is under severe criticism, particularly, concerning liquidity management practices of treasury departments. Since cash lending is not possible under Islamic Shari'ah, Islamic banks tend to use securitized asset related schemes which are by no means neither acceptable under Islamic finance jurisprudence nor compliant with Maqasiq Al-Shari'ah. Maqasid Al-Shariah oversees economic activities which produce wealth and prosperity for all members of society to empower any member with certain level of belongings to bestow freedom while condemning inequality. Under this wider aim of Maqasid Al-Shari'ah, this paper presents alternative state-of-art Shari'ah compliant products, which is used in international trade finance, to be migrated to electronic trading platform under organized exchange in pursuit of replacing controversial liquidity management products. Besides, this paper introduces Islamic Commodity Future Contract, derived from asset backed Murabaha, with physical delivery as an alternative liquidity management tool for Islamic FIs and hedging tool for companies