London – Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) President Bandar Hajjar has launched a roadmap to resolve social and economic problems that are facing the world. “Confronting poverty is not restricted to providing food, clothes and housing but transforming the poor to a productive individual,” Hajjar told Asharq Al-Awsat.
The newspapers asked, “You became an official president of IsDB last October and 100 days later you spoke about a roadmap for the coming five years. What is this plan?”
Hajjar replied that, “After considering the internal and foreign challenges as well as the economic, political and social difficulties I put a roadmap based on this given and it clarifies how the bank will operate within these five years to be capable of dealing efficiently with these challenges.”
“Are there specific fields that top the list of priorities in your five-year plan?” asked Asharq Al-Awsat.
“There are three strategic goals: joint comprehensiveness through fulfilling needs of the poor and marginalized, correlation to achieve sustainable growth via reinforcing joint investment and expertise exchange and the third goal is supporting Islamic banking industry,” replied Hajjar.
When asked about the bank announcing that it will become a decentralized bank, IsDB president said that the decentralization means transferring some operations from the bank’s main headquarters in Jeddah to regional offices. He continued that the distribution of offices on regions serves the purpose of activating their role and permitting them to perform their tasks efficiently.
“The regional office is located in a certain country but several neighboring countries benefit from it,” added Hajjar.
“Some see that the IsDB needs to exert extra efforts to develop the Islamic banking industry – economic updates are racing while finding solutions that comply with the sharia is being a slow process,” said the newspaper.
Hajjar commented that “Innovating more long-term financial tools and reducing short-term funding as well as expanding bonds-funding and developing the institutions of Zakah, Wakaf, Qard Hasan and others are all a must.”
The newspaper asked, “In the past weeks, you received delegations from Russia and discussed cooperation in the field of Islamic banking. What is the role of IsDB in this segment?”
IsDB president replied that “There is a huge interest in Islamic banking in Russia. In May 2016, IsDB signed a MoU with the Central Bank of Russia and other Russian banks. These memorandums allow t
he exchange of expertise and knowledge in the aim of developing the segment of Islamic baking and underpinning cooperation opportunities in diverse areas of work.”
“What about the partnership forum between the public and private sectors that you are willing to establish in Riyadh? Why did you highlight the private sector?” asked the newspaper.
Hajjar answer came as follows, “A glance on the necessary investment in infrastructure, worldwide, shows that it is estimated as USD3.3 trillion annually. These essential needs and projects require huge investment and various experiences that’s why it is a keypoint that the private and public sector join efforts to implement them. The world countries are working on developing partnership forms to make thereof more efficient. Why now? Because distributing risks on several parties and providing the capital, knowledge and experience alleviates financial burdens on the public sector.”