-- Paris Europlace (the Paris Financial Centre) said it welcomes sukuk issuers on NYSE Euronext and the setting up of Islamic banks in Paris.

“The regulations that have been recently adopted to facilitate Islamic finance in France are intended to make Paris a hub for Islamic finance and now we have all the tools to accommodate Islamic finance,” Arnaud de Bresson, Managing Director of Paris Europlace told a news conference here yesterday. He said Paris Europlace has exerted great efforts for the last three years to promote Islamic finance and the opportunities it has to offer and ultimately submitted proposals for reforms to develop Islamic Finance in France.

As a result, both the French Ministry of Economy, Industry and Employment and the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), the French financial markets regulatory authority, announced late last year significant tax and regulatory changes aimed at boosting Islamic finance in France.

Arnaud de Bresson together with Christian Noye, Governor of Banque de France accompanied by a large delegation is currently visiting Doha as part of a Gulf tour which also includes Bahrain and the UAE.

Arnaud de Bresson said the new reforms that were adopted concerned authorisation of Shariah-indexed mutual funds, listing of sukuk in France, tax neutrality on Murabaha (transactions on real estate property, shares, machinery and commodities) as well as tax deduction on renumeration of sukuk.

"These are concrete measures which have been implemented at the end of last year which are now used by different players. Paris today is with appropriate tools in a position to attract Islamic finance activities,” he said.

“We are convinced that Islamic finance can bring some interesting opportunities to face the present financial crisis because of the specificity of the Islamic financial instruments in terms of the distribution of profits, in terms of long term perspectives and in terms of the elimination of interests.”

Paris Europlace has called for stronger ties between Doha and Paris, as already initiated by NYSE Euronext who has a 25 percent stake in the Doha Securities Market (DSM). It also intends to propose the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) to develop cooperation in various fields, including asset management, insurance, research and education, Islamic finance and environmental finance among others.

“We think that because of this new situation with the financial crisis it should be necessary to develop more joint works to think together to the lessons that we have to take from the present situation and develop strategies for the financial marketplace in the coming years,” said Arnaud de Bresson.

“We need to work together on the development of Islamic finance and new tools in terms of sustainable development.”

Source: Peninsula