KARACHI: US tech firm Spectreco LLC and AlBaraka Forum, a Saudi think-tank, would launch an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Index in June to develop a robust benchmark for sustainable investments that align with the Islamic law and global regulations, the Spectreco chief executive officer told Arab News.
The two partners announced the launch of the Artificial Intelligence-led Shariah-compliant ESG index at the 45th AlBaraka Islamic Economics Symposium which was held last week in the Saudi city of Madinah.
“The actual launch of this index will happen in Istanbul in June,” said Faraz Khan, the winner of UK’s prestigious Order of the British Empire who was born in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta.
“In the next three to five years, we hope to make this index [will be] the most widely used index in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region, starting with Saudi Arabia and led by it.”
The index is designed to be a “game changer” and a smart, technology-driven solution that will integrate the faith-based financial system with global ESG regulations. It will have the fundamentals of both the global ESG regulations and Shariah-compliant financial systems, and will be binding them through technology, according to Khan.
Spectreco and AlBaraka are currently looking for users, asset managers, banks and funds for the index that would help the Islamic economy and the wider world to integrate in a more value proposition-oriented way. The initiative would serve stakeholders, including investors, regulators and Islamic finance institutions seeking to align faith-based investment practices with modern sustainability goals, as the reporting of their compliance with ESG regulations is becoming mandatory for companies from Europe, the United Kingdom, Asia Pacific, and parts of North America.
“Now your trade and FDI both have embedded the sustainability and ESG and carbon footprint mechanisms across their space,” Khan told Arab News in an interview.
He said Islamic economies from the Middle East and North Africa region, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, were moving toward mandatory ESG compliance reporting, while Oman had already made it mandatory.
“A huge Islamic economy is moving toward mandatory reporting,” said Khan, whose firm aims to simplify sustainability reporting, compliance and performance tracking across multiple jurisdictions.
Speaking of the leverage his company has over others in terms of entering Saudi Arabia and other gulf markets, Khan said they have a technology that has an end-to-end mechanism and is driven by data, evidence and AI in the space of ESG and sustainability.
“We have on-ground expertise of the built environment and financial services and investor paradigm,” he said.
Yousef Hassan Khalawi, secretary-general at the Albaraka Forum that aims to advance Islamic economy, said the global Islamic economy was attracting more and more people and its size was expected to increase to $7 trillion by 2028.
“This is yet not that number which can represent the capacity of Muslims which are as a population now almost around 25 percent” of the world population, Khalawi told Arab News in a separate interview from Bahrain.
At $2 trillion, he said, the Islamic finance industry is still less than five percent of the global finance industry. He said the Shariah-compliant index would encourage bankers and business developers to develop more products that would meet global sustainability standards.
“It is, it should be a global index which means it should cover banks from Indonesia till Nigeria till even South Africa,” Khalawi said.
Around 65 percent of Islamic banking assets were concentrated in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region as well as Malaysia, according to the Albaraka official. In Saudi Arabia, the size of retail Islamic banking stood more than 95 percent while the corporate size was over 70 percent.
“Here, you are focusing on the major markets and then the rest of the world will come easier,” he added.
Khalawi called Pakistan a “very important nation,” with one of the “fiercest creators” of the Shariah-compliant economy.
Pakistan’s Islamic banking is growing at more than 20 percent every year and its government is trying to fully make its interest-based financial system Shariah-compliant by Dec. 2027, a deadline set by Pakistan’s Shariah court in April 2022.
“Many initiatives also will come in Pakistan,” Khalawi said. “For sure, we are considering Pakistan, as I said, in every single initiative we have.”
US tech giant joins hands with Saudi think-tank to launch AI-led, Shariah-compliant global ESG Index
https://arab.news/gu494
US tech giant joins hands with Saudi think-tank to launch AI-led, Shariah-compliant global ESG Index
- The new index aims to bridge $2 trillion Islamic economy with global ESG standards, says CEO of US tech firm
- Saudi think-tank Albaraka Forum says the index will help grow the Islamic economy to $7 trillion in three years
Pakistan’s interior minister accuses Imran Khan’s party of politicizing health issues
- Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi rejects reports of Imran Khan losing 85 percent vision in his affected eye
- Health concerns for Khan’s eye ailment have triggered protests and road closures in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Tuesday accused former prime minister Imran Khan’s party of politicizing his health issues for mileage, reiterating that the government had granted him adequate medical treatment in prison.
Naqvi’s response came hours after Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party rejected a government-issued medical report on his eye condition, demanding authorities allow family members and his personal physician to examine him in prison.
Health concerns emerged last week after a court-appointed lawyer, Barrister Salman Safdar, visited Khan at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail and reported that the former premier had suffered “severe vision loss” in his right eye due to central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO), leaving him with about 15 percent sight in the affected eye.
Jail authorities said a team of doctors from multiple hospitals examined Khan on Sunday and submitted findings to a court. A two-page medical document circulated on social media stated that unaided vision in Khan’s right eye was 6/24 and 6/9 in the left, improving to 6/9 (partial) and 6/6 respectively with glasses. While Naqvi has confirmed a medical report has been released, he did not discuss its findings.
Speaking to reporters in Lahore during a press conference, the interior minister accused the PTI of creating a “propaganda” that Khan had lost 85 percent vision in his affected eye.
“It is our obligation to tell people this much that whatever cells in your [PTI] party that are doing this, beware of them,” he said. “They are enemies of the people and are trying to do their politics under the guise of some other objectives.”
Naqvi said contrary to what the PTI was doing, the government did not want to politicize Khan’s eye ailment, adding that the welfare of every prisoner was its responsibility.
“After all this thing I have come to the conclusion about some people [in PTI] that they care more about their politics than his [Khan’s] health,” he said.
Sharing details of the checkup, Naqvi said he invited PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan to reach Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail, where Khan is imprisoned, to witness the former premier’s medical examination on Sunday. However, the minister said Gohar refused, citing party consultations.
He said Gohar, along with the opposition leaders in the Senate and National Assembly— Allama Raja Nasir Abbas and Mehmood Khan Achakzai--and their preferred doctors were invited to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) for a briefing on Khan’s checkup.
Naqvi said Gohar, Abbas and Achakzai, along with the doctors, expressed satisfaction over Khan’s examination. However, he alleged Khan’s sister Aleema Khanum told party members that if they accepted the government’s version, “the issue would die down.”
“You also got the medical report yesterday,” Naqvi told reporters. “And in it, all things are clear.”
Khan’s health concern has sparked protests by supporters, including demonstrations and road closures in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where his party governs, and a sit-in outside parliament in Islamabad.
FORMER CAPTAINS RALLY FOR KHAN
Separately, 14 former international cricket captains appealed to the government to grant Khan immediate medical treatment for his eye ailment, calling for “humane and dignified detention conditions” for the former Pakistan captain.
The statement was issued on behalf of former captains Michael Atherton, Allan Border, Michael Brearley, Greg Chappell, Ian Chappell, Belinda Clark, Sunil Gavaskar, David Gower, Kim Hughes, Nasser Hussain, Clive Lloyd, Kapil Dev, Steve Waugh and John Wright.
“As fellow cricketers who understand the values of fair play, honor, and respect that transcend the boundary rope, we believe that a person of Imran Khan’s stature deserves to be treated with the dignity and basic human consideration befitting a former national leader and a global sporting icon,” the statement read.
The statement also called for “fair and transparent access” to legal processes for Khan without undue delay or hindrances.
Khan, a former cricket star who served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022 before being removed in a parliamentary vote of no confidence, has been in jail since August 2023 in multiple cases he says are politically motivated. The government denies the allegations.
Khan’s family members are expected to hold a press conference in the evening today outside Adiala jail on his health condition.
