Chairing the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) may bring Kazakhstan hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, an official from a Malaysian Islamic bank said on Wednesday, Central Asia Newswire.
Kazakhstan is slated to assume the OIC chairmanship at the end of June for a year. Tajikistan holds the current OIC chairmanship.
Malaysian bank Amanah Raya's head of corporate finance believes the chairmanship will bring between $500 to $600 million in foreign investments to Kazakhstan's sukuk, or Islamic bonds, sector. Amanah Raya plans to establish an Islamic bank in Kazakhstan by the end of 2011.
Corporate finance head Abu Hanif said that Kazakhstan's sukuk market could attract up to $1 billion in investment thanks to its leading of the global Islamic organization, the Kazakhstan Today news agency reported on Wednesday.
"This will bring considerable income to the economy," Hanif said.
In related OIC news, Kazakhstan on Tuesday hosted a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the Austrian capital Vienna to discuss its priorities for its upcoming chairmanship of the global group.
The Central Asian country's main priorities as OIC chair will include interfaith tolerance and the weathering of current threats and challenges to OIC member nations, the Kazinform news agency reported on Wednesday.
Delegates at the Vienna roundtable discussion also prepared for the 38th session of the OIC Foreign Ministers, which will be held in the Kazakh capital Astana from June 28-30.
The roundtable was organized by the Kazakh embassy in Austria.