» Africa Seeks to More Islamic Finance

African banks are seeking to attract more invested money from the Arab and Muslim world The Ivory Coast Prime Minister, in his speech at the opening of the Africa Economic Forum on Islamic finance, said: "The Islamic finance industry offers excellent prospects for the African continent. Therefore, our countries must take advantage because it has a greater ability to complete the development work at a lower cost". It should be noted that the African banks have enormously increased financial resources in the near future with an expected growth rate for deposits of up to 85% in the West African Economic Union. Africa and the Islamic world forum aimed at stimulating the domestic and international markets for financing in Africa. He highlighted the importance of the movement of Arab and Islamic countries to boost the economy and trade of and to enter into investment projects in African countries. On the other hand Concurrently, The Ivory Coast is preparing to collect $ 534 million from the first bonds to be posted in the Arab and Islamic markets.

Manama will host the World Islamic Banking Conference in December; its activities will begin from 1^st to 3^rd December 2015. Organizers of the conference revealed the launch of a new tool to measure the performance of Islamic banks in cooperation with the Central Bank of Bahrain during the conference in which officials and executives of Islamic banks will take part from around the world. Farouk, the Vice Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer for the Middle East Global Advisors, which organizes the conference, said that this year's conference will feature the launch of a number of reports for dealing with Islamic banking, including a report launched by the global company "Ernst & Young". He expected a participation of about 1,500 participations, compared with 1,300 in the previous session. He also highlighted that this session will see the participation of Britain, Luxembourg and the United States as well as Canada and Australia. Farouk said that this conference will serve banking and asset management sectors, and will provide an ideal platform for eight vital reports about these sectors. Additionally, discussion sessions will be held to highlight the innovative financial services as well as special sessions on women leaders in the field of Islamic finance.