Reuters
Bain & Company collaborated with Thomson Reuters on the following session briefing for the November 2013 Global Islamic Economy Summit in Dubai.
Governments can play an instrumental role in enabling their country’s economy through five key levers. A few governments have recognized early the need for Islamic products and services, which prompted them to dedicate significant effort into supporting the development of Islamic niche sectors. In this brief we present a number of examples of how some governments have successfully supported their halal economies.
Islamic economy pioneers started by early defining their ambition and roadmap to reach the desired state. For that purpose, visionary leaders have identified the need for a clearly articulated vision to be used as guidance for further strategy cascading and unifying national goals.
The most prominent example of a successful vision can be seen in Malaysia. The country had a clear vision to become the "international hub of Islamic finance" with universal offering, service excellence and high returns. As a result, it focused on developing a full Islamic financial system with various Islamic offerings, such as banking, sukuk, asset management and takaful, and setting an ambitious goal of constituting 20% of the world's Island Financial Services market. Recently, Malaysia went as far as issuing an Islamic Financial Service law. Indeed, Malaysia evolved from a local player to a regional (and in some areas global) hub—and center of reference—for Shariah compliant financial services.
Similarly, Malaysia's Ministry of Tourism vision is to "develop Malaysia as a world-class tourist destination" and it's Tourism Transformation Plan targets to bring in 36 million tourists and $55 billion in tourism receipts by 2020. Part of its tourism strategy was a very strategic and focused approach to attracting tourists from Muslin countries with tailor-made offerings. Among the segments targeted are Arabic-speaking, Middle-East based, more conservative customers and families.
First published in November 2013