By IANS
Dubai : The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has given green signal to a proposal by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to set up an international forum for Islamic financial policies, WAM news agency reported Friday.
The proposal got the go ahead at the end of a two-day meeting of experts of UAE’s ministry of finance and the Jeddah-based IDB here Thursday.
The joint consultative meeting was attended by IDB chairman Ahmed Ali, leaders of Islamic financial institutions, representatives of 10 Islamic countries, central banks, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The proposal will be submitted to the IDB board of governors for final approval.
“Challenges facing the Islamic financial services are depressing efforts towards achieving harmony, competition and transparency and developing accounting and auditing standards,” Khaled Al Bustani of UAE’s finance ministry, said at the meeting.
“We need a higher authority or council for Islamic financial services to reconcile different schools of Islamic Sharia,” he added.
He said that the forum comprises finance ministers, central bankers, IDB, Islamic agencies for accounting and auditing, Islamic Financial Services Council, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
“The forum’s main mandate is to work out strategies for upgrading Islamic financial industry to serve the socio-economic development in the Islamic World,” he added.