Details on when it will be issued and the size and type of the offering was not announced
Egypt is gearing up to issue its first sovereign sukuk in the first half of 2022, with the sukuk law’s executive regulations expected to be completed within the next 3 months.
Finance Minister Mohamed Maait stated that the government is planning to form a state-owned company to manage sukuk issuance in a Tuesday statement, adding that work on the law will be cooperation with the Financial Supervisory Authority and Al-Azhar Al-Sharif.
The sukuk aims to attract new Egyptian and foreign investors to invest in accordance with the principles of Islamic Sharia in Egyptian pounds, US dollars and other currencies.
In an exclusive statement to CNBC Arabia on Wednesday, the minister announced that the volume of the first sukuk issuance will be will range between $1-2 billion.
Returns on sukuk, which could be offered in local or foreign currency, would be taxed in the same way as Egyptian treasury bonds, wrote the Ministry of Finance.
According to Maait in June, with the issuance of the law, Egypt will be entering the Islamic finance market for the first time, with the volume of sukuk issuances reaching $2.7 trillion.
The money raised through the sukuk will contribute to funding state investments on social and economic development projects.
The sukuk will be issued in the form of paper of electronic certificates, according to the specifications determined by the executive regulations of the law, and will be nominal, of equal value, and issued for a specified period in Egyptian pounds or foreign currencies, through public or private offerings in the local market or in international markets, the official statement wrote.
Updated on 25 August to include size of sukuk offering announced by Maait
