Financial crisis fails to dampen enthusiasm

Gulf Daily News: The global financial crisis, far from dampening enthusiasm for the WIBC, has seen record numbers of delegates from more than 45 countries turn up in Bahrain.

That is partly down to the fact that leading players in the Islamic finance industry were more keen than ever to meet up with their industry peers to discuss the way forward in troubled times.

That was the consensus view from speakers and delegates on the opening day of the world's biggest gathering of Islamic financial experts.

"The turnout here in troubled times is testament to how important this industry is becoming," said Ernst & Young Bahrain partner Sameer Abdi.

"Bahrain is clearly the global centre for Islamic finance and that is shown by the massive turnout from the UK Islamic finance industry as well as the number of delegates from Singapore, the Far East and the region as well as further afield.

"This is clearly the forum where people have come to discuss how Islamic finance moves forward and how it plays an important role in providing liquidity at a time when Islamic finance is playing an important role in dealing with the credit crisis."

"Bahrain's Economic Development Board (EDB) remains proud to be the WIBC jurisdiction partner and the turnout this year is a reflection of the generic growth in the industry as more people have come from more countries.," said EDB executive director of business development Stephen Harrison.

"For the 15th anniversary event, as well as our traditional participants from the region and Asia, we have seen an even stronger show from the UK and also interest from developing Islamic finance markets like South Africa and Europe."

On the pre-opening day there were a record number of people turning up for the workshop sessions, according to MTI Consulting chief executive Hilmy Cader, who said the enthusiasm for the event was impressive.

MTI Consulting presented their research-based study on the state of the global banking industry at the WIBC where they are a strategic partner for the third consecutive year.

"Our workshop was focusing on strategic marketing in conventional and Islamic retail banking using cross industry and cross border learning and best practice research and quite frankly we were not sure of the response to expect given the current economic climate.

"But the turnout both for our event and the others on Sunday was extremely impressive.

"Clearly the industry is coming together here in Bahrain this week to look to the way forward for the industry."