Decentralisation, Islamic banking will empower MSMEs for economic growth, says WIEF

Following the successful hosting of 11 editions of the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) in various countries, the 12th edition holds in Jakarta, Indonesia, August 2 to 4. Themed, “Decentralizing Growth, Empowering Future Business”, the forum will focus on the empowerment of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in bid to align small businesses with current business trends and boost economic growth. In its bid to include the participation of Nigeria in the Forum this year, Mr. Tan Sri Ahmad Fuzi Haji Abdul Razak, the Secretary-General, WIEF Foundation, recently visited Nigeria to gain the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari on the benefits of the participation Nigeria and its private sector especially, considering the relevance of the theme of WIEF this year. In this interview, he spoke with Deputy Abuja Bureau Chief, MOHAMMED ABUBAKAR and OLUDARE RICHARDS on the purpose of his visit.

What is the purpose of your visit?
The purpose of my visit here is to invite the President of Nigeria to attend the Forum. He would be guest of the government of Indonesia.
We have been organizing it since 2005 in Malaysia, and ultimately with countries outside Malaysia. Other than Malaysia, we have held in Kuala Lumpur, Islamabad, Kuwait, London, and Dubai. Next year, after Jakarta, we will be hosting the 13th WIEF in Korea. Indonesia is the host of the Forum this year, WIEF is the organizer, and will be working very closely with the Ministry of Finance of Indonesia to organize this Forum. It has evolved over the past 12 years and it is turning into a very important global platform. The focus is basically on economic issues touching on business and how to do business and business collaborations in general including trade, investments, and so forth. The whole idea is to provide a basic platform for members of the private sector to take advantage of the opportunities available at the forum. Not only to listen to the panelists touching on issues that have been incorporated into the programme but also to allow them to interact and network with each other to do business.

We hope that President Buhari will be able to attend and deliver his address. What we hope to see is for the President to articulate Nigeria’s position on global economic issues and perhaps also to address the critical global economic issues that we are now facing, not only in the Muslim world, but also the non-Muslim world.

What are the possible benefits of the forum to Nigeria and impact on its business and economic development?
The forum is not restricted to just Muslims. We do not entertain issues pertaining to religion, theology, values, politics or security. We believe that there are enough forums out there touching on all these, so we leave it to them. Our focus will be on how we can get the participants to collaborate for mutual benefit on trade, business and economic collaborations. The president is expected to attend, if not, his most senior economic representative perhaps. He would be bringing perhaps some members of the private sector, as well as the economic minister in charge of economic business to promote investment opportunities in Nigeria.

We have also opportunities for investment kind of promotion for countries interested to do so. We would also welcome private investors from Nigeria to undertake, for example, promotion of their business activities strictly on private sector to private sector basis. There is also opportunity for people with new ideas on what we call the idea platform so that they can pitch whatever new products or ideas they have and would like to promote at the global level. There will also be an exhibition we would be organizing on the side of it called MOCAFest. MOCAFest is intended to get the interest of the young to look at art and culture and innovation.

It could be visual, or tool making and so forth, to see how they can take advantage of the network to network with their other counterparts and to develop and expand on opportunities in the field of Arts and Culture.

We find that over the years, this has been very popular among the participants, especially the young. As you know today, a large proportion of population in most countries constitute the youth. At the same time, we thought we should provide them space and time for them to also take advantage of the opportunities we have.

How does the Forum hope to achieve the aim of the theme of the Forum on the impact of MSMEs on participants, especially from Nigeria?
The theme of the Forum for this year is “Decentralizing Growth: Empowering Future Business, which is important for a country like Indonesia. Indonesia is a huge country that needs to decentralize not only on authority and power. That, think, applies to a country like Nigeria as well, but at the same time to distribute the economic, business opportunities, particularly in the field of Small and Medium size industries. Indonesia, for instance, is looking at developing infrastructure, raising funds for infrastructure development as well as Islamic Halal industries, Halal tourist industries, for example. Issues around this include, infrastructure financing, integration of Halal sectors and Islamic financing.

Islamic finance is also a very important topic. Many countries are now using Islamic Banking and Finance. Malaysia and Indonesia are looking to playing important roles in developing Islamic Banking and Finance.

We have got training programs, training facilities. We have got the regulatory framework to promote the development of Islamic Banking and Finance in Malaysia and also in Indonesia. Islamic Banking is developing slowly and steadily and it is becoming more and more popular now, not only within the Muslim world, but also within the non-Muslim world also. A country like U.K. is interested in this. Korea is also looking seriously into this, and China as well as Japan.

They are looking at the opportunities in it like Singapore, which is a non-Muslim country, is developing their own Islamic Banking facility. It is the same with Paris and a number of European countries as well. The basic question of using Sharia-compliant principles for purposes of undertaking business and also Islamic Banking is a very important aspect, and this will also be one of the issues we will address at the Forum.

Agriculture sector development is one of the key areas for improvement in Nigeria’s economic diversification goal. Are there elements of development of the Agriculture sector supported?
I understand that the Nigerian government is looking seriously into agriculture and food industry and so on and so forth; there is a lot of potential here. We can get investors to come and develop this sector, this is a potential that can be tapped by the government at the WIEF.

Also, we have the subject of global modest fishing industry, interestingly, Islamic Fishing, it is called. It is also a trend now. There are of course so many popular ones in the west; there are so many names.

Nigeria has got its own unique fishing that could also be developed through innovation and creativity, something that could be used as a popular kind of fishing. Religion is sometimes employed, not for religious purposes. We have as well, the expansion of the Halal food industry. The potential for the development of the Halal food industry globally is increasing, the demand is huge, and we find that non-Muslim countries are taking advantage, in fact in a country like Thailand.

Thailand, even though it is a non-Muslim country, is more developed in terms of Halal food industry, for purposes of export. Similarly, a country like Nigeria can do the same.

On business development
Improving funding access for Small and Medium Scale Industries, which should be relevant for a country like Nigeria, and then integrating Small and Medium size industries into the digitized train. Digitized train is of course something new, that is expanding very fast today, that could also be taken advantage of by a country like Nigeria.

Building more equity Crowd Funding platforms is also important. As you can see what is happening, especially in the strength of Small and Medium size industries, one of the problems they face is to expand. They have lot of ideas to develop their business, but what they do not have is the funding that goes with it.

So, Crowd Funding is one of the important models we can use to raise funds for purposes of engaging business, especially for company startups.

On the subject of promoting innovation, by linking this kind of new startups with major corporations because the Forum will participate, not only by Small and Medium-size industries but also representative of big corporations. Hopefully, they will be able to interact and strike some kind of positive economic relationship. Lastly, is inculcating the culture of design thinking for business. I want to express the hope that we will see his Excellency, the President of Nigeria at the forum, and also to bring along with him a sizeable delegation, not only from the public sector but especially from the private sector as well. We as a foundation, we don’t make money, to be frank with you, but we spend. We are actually looking to how to help business participants basically of Small and Medium size industries. After Nigeria, I am going to Guinea to invite the President. The President of Guinea has incidentally already accepted to attend, so I just need to reaffirm that when I go there, and then I will proceed to Algeria.