KARACHI: Professionals Network recently organised Islamic Banking & Finance Conference at a local hotel in Karachi.

The Chief Guest of the inaugural session was Syed Samar Hasnain (Executive Director, SBP). Speakers include Jawad Majid Khan (President & CEO, Bank Makramah), Faisal Iqbal (GM / Head of SME & Supply Chain Financing, Meezan Bank), Ateeq Ur Rehman (Economic & Financial Analyst) and Mehmood Tareen (CEO, The Professionals Network) Samar Hasnain while speaking at the conference “From Practice to Impact: Aligning Islamic Economics & Finance with Global Challenges”, emphasized that Islamic economic and finance is a comprehensive framework that offers a distinctive approach to fostering ethical, sustainable, and socially responsible economic development. By aligning financial practices with moral and social values, Islamic finance has the potential to drive meaningful change in an increasingly complex global landscape.

The challenges are huge; climate risk, financial inclusion, innovation and ultimately achieving sustainability. These require expertise and enormous resources thus the solution lies in strategic ties, strong collaboration among stakeholders to create innovative solutions that align with the principles of Maqasid al-Shariah, fostering a sustainable and equitable future for all.”

Jawad Majid Khan emphasized on Islamisation of Pakistan economy is the way forward as it can actually address all the major fundamental issues we are facing for decades that include converting informal to formal economy and documentation, revenues/tax collection verses very high expenditures, unproductive vicious debt circle, one of the lowest gross national saving rates, lower GDP growth rates that is dependent heavily on imports and a very unattractive climate for investments etc.

Faisal Iqbal said the critical role of SMEs in achieving Maqasid e Shariah and vital contribution to Economy as a whole. With conversion of all conventional banks into IBs in next 3 years and Regulator’s declaring SME and Agri as priority sectors for lending, IBs are poised to contribute significantly for SMEs promotion with introduction of exclusive SME business vertical, Digital Supply Chain Finance and Capacity building being carried out by the Banking Industry. Ateeq ur Rehman said the the growth of our economy and Islamic banking / finance always goes together.

The contribution of Islamic Banking / Finance has to be immense for the expansion of our trade. He suggested the future frame work  for support by Islamic Banking / Finance has to be in the potential sectors of Agri Value Chain - Purpose built Storage / Cool Chain, creation  of state of the art processing units for by products of our fruits , vegetables / sea food , etc, enlargement of our fish harbors , improvement of our sea ports facilities and provision for financing the existence of ship building , ship repairing , ship breaking  , value added and import substitution industry for magnificent “Made in Pakistan / Produce of Pakistan”. Mehmood Tareen thanked the participants and audience in such an important conference. The other valuable speakers in the conference included H.E Mr. Ibrahim Khalid Tawab ( Honorary CG , Ethiopia in Karachi), Mufti Zubair Usmani (Chairman Shahriah Board Member, HBL), Mr. Saleem Ullah Shaikh ( Head Islamic Banking , Habib Metro) Mr. Faisal Shaikh ( Head Product and Shariah , Meezan Bank) , Mr. Abbas Raza Varyala (EVP , Bank Alhabib)  Mr. Suhail Malick (Group Head Digital Governance, NBP). Mufti Khawaja Noor Ul Hassan (Resident Shahriah Board Member , HMB ) Dr. Irum Saba (Associate Professor , IBA) and others. They spoke moving towards “Riba Free Economy - Targets, challenges , opportunities”, and “Impact of Digitalization in Islamic Finance for inclusion , sustainability and ethics”.