Amanie Afra Halal Investment Ltd

It was a great evening yesterday in Bangkok city. We had a soft launching of Amanie Afra Halal Investment Ltd, our new company of the JV between Mr Sakk, Mr Lukman and myself. We are joining the forces and resources to work collectively on fund raising, venture capital, business advisory and merger&acquisition....the halal way. We are committed to adopt a co-investment between Islamic investment and traditional investment.

The whole event from welcoming drink to maghrib prayer to few speeches to dinner took place at garden office of Mr Sak at Bamboo Whisper Garden in Bangkok. It was a nice environment. We had guests coming from Middle East and Asean countries, both Muslim and non Muslims. I was asked to lead the Maghrib prayer and to give a keynote adddress.

In my speech, I was saying, based on my experience working or having connection world wide, that the time now is the era of investors. It is the investors, accross the globe, who are pushing for Islamic investment in various financial instuments from debt to fixed income to equity to hybrid and derivatives to fund. This is a good news. If the investors - in all asset classes such as shares, sukuk, property, trading, mineral, agriculture, infrastructure - are not hungry for Shariah compliant investment, the push for Islamic finance will be difficult and harder. We need to capitalise this trending. Here lies the importance of Amanie Afra Halal Investment Ltd.

The synegry has become the new equity. Not only we need to embrace the synergetic approach, we also need to create new synergetic opportunities to come our way.

We know we have a dream (as inspired by Martin Luther King) and we also know that the time is perfect to create the financial bridge for the whole comunnity....to invest in halal investment.

MDB

Meeting with the Mufti of Kazakhtan - His Excellency Erjan al-Malghaji

Had a good discussion at the office of the Mufti on Islamic finance, halal and waqf. We need to be synergetic in what we do. Dont reinvent the wheel.

Thank you His Excellency and his staff and my colleague Edige Alpysbay for this meeting.