Sharia Bonds To Finance Infrastructure Development

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - Sharia economist  Adiwarman A Karim said sharia bonds would be a major instrument to raise fund to finance infrastructure projects in Indonesia.

"Indonesia has three things other countries do not. First,  Indonesia is a regular issuer of sharia bonds. Second, sharia bond fund has been used to finance projects and third, there is retail portion that low income people could enjoy gain from sharia bonds," Adiwarman, who is a Founding Partner of KARIM Consulting Indonesia , said here on Thursday.

He said funds raised from sharia bonds for infrastructure projects have been managed in line with the sharia principles.

However, it would still take long time to mote sharia bonds  and attract the interest of the people, he said, adding the Financial Service Authority (OJK) should continue the campaign to promote sharia bonds.

He said increase in the number of shares listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange would be a factor to encourage the people to invest in stock market.

"Currently there are 332 stocks sold at the stock market or more than 50 percent of the listed shares. The capitalization, therefore, is big," he said.

He said in addition to  improvement of socialization and education, transparency is also needed in the regulation of sharia capital market.

Earlier, chief executive of OJK capital market supervision Nurhaida said the agency is revising the regulation No. IX.A.13 on issuance of sharia stocks. (WDY)