Its catching fire, I tell you. I talked about stuff happening in South Korea and Japan but now I read that
On Monday, the first real estate transaction compliant with Islamic law was struck in Japan, with the asset manager Atlas Partners Japan partnering with Kuwait’s Boubyan Bank to buy three office buildings in Tokyo for 4.38 billion yen ($40 million).
The transaction follows a decision in September by the country’s central bank, the Bank of Japan, to deepen its knowledge about Islamic finance by joining the Islamic Financial Services Board, an international standard-setting body, as an observer. Another government agency, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, also sits on the board as an observer.
he buildings that Atlas and Boubyan bought on Monday were vetted thoroughly according to the standards of Islamic finance, which bars tenants such as interest-taking financial institutions, restaurants that serve alcohol or pork, hotels, cinemas and record companies, and businesses that deal with arms, animal genetic engineering or pornography.
The deal was designed to avoid loans involving interest payments, which are forbidden under Islamic law, or Sharia.
At the end of last year, Japan’s largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ, forged an alliance with Malaysia's CIMB Group to provide Islamic financial investment banking services, such as issuing Islamic bonds to Japanese companies operating in Malaysia.
Daiwa, Japan’s second-largest securities broker announced in August that it would list a Sharia-compliant exchange-traded fund in Singapore based on an index benchmarked to the equities of the 100 largest Japanese companies by market capitalization.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
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