Saudi Arabia may overtake Malaysia as the largest issuer of Islamic bonds for the first time in 2011 as the kingdom’s 1.44 trillion-riyal ($384 billion) stimulus plan boosts spending.
Saudi Electricity Co., the Arab world’s largest utility by market value, will finance more than 30 billion riyals ($8 billion) of projects, Chief Executive Officer Ali Al-Barrak said in a Dec. 14 interview. Saudi International Petrochemical Co. said Dec. 14 it may sell as much as 2 billion riyals of Shariah- compliant debt in the first quarter. Sukuk from borrowers in the largest Arab economy totaled $2.3 billion this year, compared with $7.3 billion of local-currency debt sales in Malaysia, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
“The Saudi market could easily become the largest sukuk issuer simply because Saudi sukuk are much larger,” Tariq Al- Rifai, director of Islamic Market Indexes in Dubai for Dow Jones Indexes, part of a joint venture 90 percent owned by CME Group Inc. and 10 percent by News Corp.’s Dow Jones & Co., said in an e-mailed response to questions Dec. 17.
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