India to Learn More on Islamic Finance, Singh Says
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India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he will ask the central bank to learn more about Islamic finance from Malaysia, which has the world’s biggest market for Shariah-compliant debt, or sukuk.
There is no regulated Islamic finance market in India, where Muslims make up about 138 million, or 13 percent, of the 1 billion population, according to the government’s 2001 census. A panel headed by Raghuram Rajan, a finance professor at the University of Chicago and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, recommended in 2008 that India introduce Islamic banking to attract more capital.