ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Ishaq Dar on Friday chaired the First Steering Committee meeting on implementation of Federal Shariat Court (FSC)’s judgment on Riba.
Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Dr Aisha Ghous Pasha, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Finance Tariq Bajwa, Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Secretary Finance, members of the Steering Committee and senior officers from Finance Division and SBP attended the meeting.
Inaugurating the First meeting of the Steering Committee, the Finance Minister appreciated Governor SBP for his sincere efforts in making roadmap for implementation of Islamic financing and interest free system and hoped that the guidance of Governor SBP will lead the implementation of interest free system to its logical destination.
He also expressed satisfaction on SBP and National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) for withdrawing appeals in the Supreme Court against the judgment of Federal Shariat Court and paving the way for its implementation.
Ishaq Dar further expressed commitment of the government to promote Islamic finance and eliminate interest based system in Pakistan in true spirit and achieve its goal of transformation within the timeframe of five years. He expressed hope that the decisions of this meeting would be beneficial for the proliferation of Islamic financing system in the country.
He stressed all the stakeholders to work with commitment, sincerity and understanding to overcome all the hurdles in way of implementation of interest free system and making the system feasible and stronger that all citizens would aspire for it, as already 21 per cent of banks enjoy Islamic banking system.
The Finance Minister urged to include professional experts on Islamic laws in the committees and also sought guidance of Ulema and Islamic intellectuals into launching of additional Islamic Sukuk bonds. He further extended full support to every effort towards implementation of FSC decision on Islamic finance system.
Earlier, SBP Governor welcomed the participants of the meeting and briefed on the roadmap and areas of actions on implementation of the FSC’s judgment. He further informed that five working groups have been formed to overcome the technical issues, getting recommendations and deciding on way forward for fully implementation of the Islamic financing.