Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair on Thursday said Rangers will stay in Karachi as long as the federal government and the business community want them to stay.

Addressing the participants at the inauguration of the sixth Islamic Finance Expo and Conference organised by The Professionals Network (TPN) on Thursday, Zubair said that with the Rangers continued presence, the government wants to ensure that the “bad days” do not return. The former glory of Karachi was also lost mainly due to the law and order situation in the city where target killings, extortions, strikes, gang wars, and China cutting were the norms of the day. However, now the situation has changed, Zubair affirmed.

Talking about the condition of the basic infrastructure of the city and particularly the state of the current transport system, he termed it “shameful”. Zubair sought the help of the business community of the city to contribute for the capital intensive “Karachi Development Fund” that is going to fund the infrastructure of the city. The Prime Minister has formed a committee comprising of stakeholders from the business community which will advise the PM on the development projects, he added.

He stressed that for the development of Islamic banking in Sindh, all stakeholders will have to work together.

“Sindh lags far behind in terms of development. You go out and see for yourself – the cosmopolitan city of Karachi which was once the center of the whole region has almost become ruined and citizens from other parts of the country were not willing to come,” he noted.

The Sindh governor observed that Islamic Finance was fast growing globally as the future of Islamic banking remains bright not only in Muslim countries but also in non-Muslim countries.

He emphasised the need to look for more logical reasons to convince the people to opt for Shariah complaint banking since more than 95 percent of people strongly believe that conventional banking is against Shariah rules. The current 14 percent share of Islamic banking in the overall banking industry is not sufficient and needs to be enhanced, he noted.

On the occasion, Irfan Siddiqui, CEO of Meezan Bank, sought the government’s attention in the development of Islamic banking so it is at par with the conventional banking. This can only be possible by introducing Shariah-based financial instruments.

Siddiqui also pinpointed problems of the Islamic banking industry in Sindh province where, according to him, “lending by Islamic banks was the most difficult task in Sindh” due to safety and return reasons.