CENTRE OF ISLAMIC BANKING & ECONOMICS

Head Office: 160 – B Ahmed Block, Ph: +92-42-35913096-8 E-mail: info@alhudacibe.com New Garden Town Lahore, Pakistan. Fax: +92 -42-35913056 Website: www.alhudacibe.com

Press Release Global Islamic Microfinance Forum to be organized in Dubai

Logo Inauguration Ceremony held in Dubai that will be organized on November 01 – 02’ 2014

22-07-2014

(Lahore) Global Islamic Microfinance Forum (GIMF) will be organized jointly by AlHuda Centre of

Islamic Banking and Economics (CIBE) and AKHUWAT on November 01-02, 2014. Dr. Amjad Saqib,

Executive Director, AKHUWAT inaugurated the logo of GIMF in Logo Inauguration Ceremony at

Crown Plaza Hotel Dubai yesterday, numerous people from financial, Banking and Microfinance

industry took part in this enormous ceremony. Speaking to the public, Dr. Amjad Saqib said that

Islamic microfinance is rapidly increasing all around the world where innumerous people are

fulfilling their financial needs free from interest and flourishing their small businesses incredibly.

The purpose of this 4th GIMF is to unite Islamic Microfinance Industry under one roof. Presenting

AKHUWAT as a role model, he added that it is an organization that was started from 10,000 and

now has reached to 9 million and its fruits are reaching to approximately 500,000 families across

the country and it is a prominent example of best practices of Islamic microfinance.

CENTRE OF ISLAMIC BANKING & ECONOMICS

Head Office: 160 – B Ahmed Block, Ph: +92-42-35913096-8 E-mail: info@alhudacibe.com New Garden Town Lahore, Pakistan. Fax: +92 -42-35913056 Website: www.alhudacibe.com

Talking about the purpose and motives of 4th Global Islamic Microfinance Forum, Mr. Muhammad

Zubair Mughal, Chief Executive, AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics said that poverty

is a worldwide phenomenon and unfortunately, spreading in Muslim countries drastically. Almost

half of the world’s poor population reside in Muslim world while Muslim constitute 26% of the

total world’s population, its mean poverty in Muslim world increasing very rapidly, the main

reason it is avoidance of interest among Muslims as Interest is strictly prohibited in Islam and on

the other hand, conventional microfinance has drastically failed to alleviate poverty in Muslim.

Thus, Islamic microfinance is evidently essential so that Muslim and non Muslim both can take the

maximum advantage of this extremely fruitful product. He said that Islamic microfinance is going

through big challenges e.g. non availability of Shariah Compliant funds, misconceptions regarding

Islamic microfinance, lack of man power, regularity and Shariah problem. The purpose of this

forum is to gather the stakeholders under one platform to find out the remedy to these problems

to give a strong support to rapidly increasing Islamic Microfinance industry.

He added that delegates from more than 27 countries had participated in 3rd GIMF and it is

anticipated that more than 35 countries’ participants will be coming into this forum in which

Multilateral Organizations, Development Agencies, Microfinance, Islamic microfinance, NGOs,

conventional and Islamic banks, philanthropist and other financial organizations are included. On

the first two days of the forum Islamic microfinance its challenges and opportunities, new

products, Micro Takaful, IT integration, Micro saving, Entrepreneur Development, and other

prominent topics will be discussed in detail. On the next two days, a detailed discussion will be

made on growth of Islamic microfinance and its marketing strategies#