Islamic Banking need to be promoted in SME sector

Saturday, March 08, 2014 - Karachi—The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) has submitted recommendations for the serious consideration of the policy makers in the forthcoming budget and trade policies in order to stimulate the economy which can only be done by promoting the majority SME sector wholeheartedly and giving them a comfortable environment. The Union believes that SME promotion and development is no charity but it is the right of every SME and responsibility of the state to uplift the sector. The state must provide them equitably and make dedicated efforts to make doing business easy.

The SME sector includes traders, manufacturers, farmers and service providers. There are millions of SMEs all over Pakistan including many hospitals schools and consultants’ services. We were told 15 years ago that they were 3.2 millions SMEs but we are sure if you also include the SME farmers there would be almost 6 millions by now. We have created awareness about the importance of the sector and identified the impediments and have submitted recommendations every year for inclusion in the budget, trade policy, industrial policy and have urged the ministry of industries to revisit the SME policy made in 2007. We keep voicing the requirements of the sector all the time. The SME issues are poor law and order, loadsheding, poor infrastructure, lack of finance, information, transfer of technology, incentives and defective taxation system other than the corruption, non implementation of SME policy in right earnest. The union has submitted the following recommendations to SMEDA for onward submission to the concerned policy makers.

Law & Order: We have suggested the formation of SME Liaison Committee (SME-LC) on the pattern of the CPLC to arrange collective protection squads in industrial areas as the SMEs are threatened by gangsters and politically patronized miscreants. The SMEs need a strong committee to work as liaison between the police and the entrepreneurs and to exert pressure on the police to trace the culprits and prosecute them. The SME-LC chief must get the status of honorary first class magistrate to prevail on the police department and the relevant S.H.Os. 

Energy Crisis: We have suggested that alternate energy systems must be promoted and those SMEs willing to install alternate energy devices of solar, wind, Biomass be encouraged and the government needs to exempt the import of alternate energy systems on duty and leasing facilities must be provided on special affordable mark-up. Finance: This is a very important issue, as banks are demanding immovable property as collateral. The banks need to be educated on the subject of SME financing and taught risk management. The commercial banks need training and education on collateral management, warehouse financing, also financing on the basis of positive cash flows and the government must promote Islamic financing, leasing, hire purchase, commercial property leasing. The union has urged the government not to privatize the SME Bank but make it an SME Bank in the real sense.

The union has also urged the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to establish the SME Guarantee Insurance Company to insure SME financing and indemnify the banks against default by the borrowers. The SME needs venture capital and the system of venture capital needs to be promoted. The SMEs are looking forward to the establishment of the Exim bank as promised in the trade policy. Infrastructure: The infrastructure is poor and the SMEs are disabled due to poor infrastructure in the industrial areas. There is need for industrial estates and the need for government to allot land at concession for industrial estates. The leasing companies must adopt commercial property leasing to finance the SMEs to buy shops, workshops, warehouses and factories under commercial property leasing.

Technology Transfer: The SMEs need to import technology to manufacture quality goods and the government should facilitate collaboration with advanced countries to enable SMEs to manufacture goods with indigenous raw material and also import substitution goods in Pakistan.

Source: http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=235662

Halal, shechita and the politics of animal slaughter

f, after raising the issue for almost three decades, the British Veterinary Association was beginning to despair of ever securing front-page coverage for its campaign to ensure all animals are stunned before slaughter, it can breathe a sigh of relief. But probably a very short and shallow one.

Thanks to the interview its new head gave to the Times – picked up by the Today programme and countless others – the matter is now nothing if not high-profile. And, coming weeks after Denmark in effect outlawed kosher and halal slaughter, it is certainly topical, which may explain why the BVA's president-elect, John Blackwell, judged it a more alluring target than even the government's badger cull.

Blackwell's suggestion that the UK "may well" have to follow Denmark's example if British Jews and Muslims refuse to allow animals to be stunned before they are killed did not please the groups concerned. Nor did his assertion that cutting the throat of an animal without stunning it caused prolonged and unnecessary suffering.

"They will feel the cut," he said. "They will feel the massive injury of the tissues to the neck. They will perceive the aspiration of blood they will breathe in before they lose consciousness."

Although the BVA is a seasoned campaigner on the issue – and has also urged the government to label non-stunned meat to alert consumers to its origins – Blackwell's intervention has met with a swift and furious response from Jewish and Muslim groups, who argue their long-practised methods are completely humane. They have also hinted his comments could be used by far-right groups to stir up community tensions.

"He has made the extraordinarily misleading statement that what Jews do and Muslims do is to slit animals' throats and allow them to bleed to death," said Jonathan Arkush, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. "That is unbelievably misleading because he must know that the way the animal is killed is to cut its throat so as to bring about an immediate and irreversible loss of sensation and death."

Suggestions that the animal had its throat cut "and you just watch it while it bleeds to death", said Arkush, were pejorative, misleading and "could not be further from the truth".

Shimon Cohen, campaign director at Shechita UK – which campaigns for the right to carry out Jewish religious slaughter – described Blackwell's calls as "an extraordinary dereliction of duty" and asked why he had decided to focus on an issue that affected only a tiny minority of animals.

Although Shechita UK has no figures for the number of lambs and sheep slaughtered according to Jewish law in the UK each year, it estimates the number of cows to be 15,000-20,000 and the number of chickens to be around 1m. Figures from Compassion in World Farming suggest that 32m chickens and 70,000 cattle are slaughtered without being stunned in the UK each year.

"The fact is that religious slaughter is at least as humane as the industrialised methods used in conventional mechanical slaughter, which include electrocution, gassing, shooting, trapping, drowning and clubbing," said Cohen. His views were echoed by Arkush, who said that 9% of animals in the UK were mis-stunned, causing them pain and distress before slaughter, adding that European veterinary bodies put the figure at around 31%.

"Let's call it 9%: in this country, the total number of animals who suffer mis-stunning exceeds the whole number of animals killed for the kosher market by a factor of 10," he said. "If you've got 10 times as many animals mis-stunned as you have kosher, surely you should be attacking that?"

Arkush also said he feared that the Danish government had introduced the ban as a reaction to increasing public discontent over Muslim immigration.

"This was a political move; a populist move because there has in fact been no shechita in Denmark for 10 years because the community there is too minuscule and it wouldn't be economic," he said. "Why pass a law about it? Denmark was not done out of consideration for animal welfare but out of consideration for popular, anti-immigration sentiment."

Dr Shuja Shafi, the deputy secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he was disappointed that the issue of religious slaughter had been brought up yet again. "Halal is a humane method; it's a clean, clear method and has got rules and regulations about how it's carried out," he said. "Stunning has got lots of problems in itself … and if it's not done properly, actually animals are a lot worse off."

He also said that focusing on minority religious practices "could give ammunition" to the far right, which already uses halal slaughter as a means to try to attack the Muslim community. "People should be more responsible in how they tackle this. It's going to cause confusion and will be used by elements to have a negative effect." Blackwell told the Guardian that while a ban "may well be the end point", he would prefer to get all the groups involved together so that they could discuss the scientific evidence on stunning. He admitted that human and operator error would inevitably lead to some mis-stunning but said he did not accept that it was as common as had been suggested.

"I've heard talk today of anything between 9% and 31%, and I just don't buy that," he said. "There are veterinary surgeons working continuously in plants, monitoring the welfare aspects of the animal from the moment it arrives … to the moment it's killed."

Asked why he had chosen to raise the issue of religious slaughter rather than comment on intensive farming or the badger cull, he said: "This isn't a single-policy issue; it's part of a portfolio of issues. Welfare is very important, if not the most important thing, to veterinary surgeons. It's almost our raison d'être to try to improve welfare, and as far as animal production goes, we're concerned with the welfare from the birth of the animal till its final slaughter."

Blackwell also said that while the BVA acknowledged the sensitive nature of the debate, it was not seeking to stir up a religious or political debate on the issue of slaughter.

"We're just trying to take the moral high ground on behalf of the animal," he said. "It's not about trying to clamp down on people's very, very well-held beliefs; it's about moving forward and looking at the issues and seeing that if we can't have a ban, then how can we fine-tune it so the welfare of the animals is not compromised at slaughter?"

Blackwell's calls won the support of Compassion in World Farming, which said stunning worked and was merciful.

"In the UK, 1.4m sheep and goats, 32m chickens and 70,000 cattle are slaughtered without being stunned each year," said its chief policy adviser. "There is clear scientific evidence which shows that animals suffer when they are slaughtered without being stunned."

The response from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was rather more guarded. "We respect the rights of religious communities to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious beliefs," said a spokeswoman. "There are strict laws in place to ensure welfare standards are met during slaughter."

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/halal-shechita-politics-animal-slaughter

Azerbaijan to develop “halal” products' market

The renewed 'halal' standard will soon be applied in Azerbaijan's food market that almost fully covers its consumers' demand.

The State Committee for Standardization, Metrology, and Patents will sanction the new "halal" standard in April 1, 2014, to protect consumers' rights, prevent unhealthy competition, and increase public confidence in the domestic market.

The requirements are based on Islamic rules and extend to ingredients, preparation rules, storage, transportation, and employee requirements for production facilities.

This standard will set requirements on special packing, marking, export, and import.

The new quality standard is expected to boost "halal" products in the market and lead to positive tendencies.

"The new standard will increase competition among local producers, which will lead to price reduction," expert of the Center for Economic and Social Development Narmin Ibrahimova told AzerNews. "Furthermore, the new quality standard will promote the use of new technologies."

She said "halal" products will increase the consumers' confidence and the demand for these products in the country.

"The new quality standard will have a positive impact on the export potential of such products, as the standard will meet respective international standards," she concluded.

Islam has the dominating position in Azerbaijan, since approximately 95 percent of its population is Muslims. Naturally, "halal" products, which are allowed to eat or drink under the Islamic law, are in high demand among Muslims.

Azerbaijan's local market offers a range of various "halal" foodstuffs for customers, which mainly include sausages and chicken products. The customers believe that the label "halal" means the products really meet all the requirements of this standard.

Halal certification is the recognition that the products are permissible under Islamic law. These products are thus edible, drinkable, or usable by Muslims. Muslim followers cannot consume pork or pork-related products, animals that were dead prior to slaughtering, animals not slaughtered properly or not slaughtered in the name of God, and products that have blood.

Azerbaijan approved three state "halal" standards which came into force on August 1, 2012. Until now none of the meat-food producers has ever applied to the Committee for getting the standards and produce fully "halal" food products.

The State Committee said the enterprises selling such goods will be given time to change the labels of the products, otherwise such products will be removed from the market.

The Committee will carry out its monitoring after April 1, and in case of finding cases of groundless label "halal", measures aimed at suspending sale and production, as well as penalties, will be applied against the producers.

Source: http://www.azernews.az/azerbaijan/64842.html

قومی آگاہی مہم براے اسلامی بنکاری کا آغاز

Successful launch of Nationwide Road Show to promote Islamic Banking and Takaful

The awareness campaign has started from Peshawar, and will end in Karachi while passing through 30 different cities of Pakistan and organizing 100 events

04-03-2014

(Peshawar) National awareness campaign “Road Show 2014” has started today  from Peshawar to promote the Islamic Banking and takaful, to trim down the rising criticism and objection on Islamic finance, thriving the Islamic Financial methods in Shariah perspective in the country to get rid of interest element by benefitting Islamic Banking and Finance. The awareness campaign named as “Khyber to Karachi” Road Show 2014 which will pass through 30 different cities of Pakistan from Khyber to Karachi, will conduct 100 free seminars and workshops especially in Chambers of Commerce and Industries, Trade Associations, Universities, Professional Institutes and Industrial Estates to equally benefit the businessmen, industrialists, professional experts and students.

Stating the objectives of nationwide awareness campaign “Road Show 2014”, the Organizer, Muhammad Zubair Mughal, Chief Executive Officer – AlHuda Center of Islamic Banking and Economics (CIBE) said that the prime objective of the Road Show is to enhance the awareness of Islamic Banking and Finance among the masses and to eradicate the objections that has been put on Islamic banking and finance through different propagandas. He said that the promotion of Islamic banking and finance is necessary for the economic development and prosperity where we can benefit the agriculturists, industrialists and the whole economy with Islamic financial services by strengthening our financial institutions and also the Sukuk (Islamic Bonds) can be strengthened and poverty can be alleviated through the Islamic microfinance.

He said that the rationality behind Islamic financial system can be observed in the recent global financial crisis where thousands of interest based financial institutions were ruined but no Islamic financial institute was adversely affected by such upheaval although there are more than 1500 Islamic financial institutions working with interest free modes such as Asset Based Financing under ethical practices around the globe and number of international financial institutions are transforming towards the Islamic Banking and Finance. He said that Alhamdulillah, today, we started the awareness campaign “Road Show 2014” from Peshawar followed by seminars in University of Peshawar, Agriculture University of Peshawar and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry etc and this road show, passing through 30 different cities, will conclude after a long way of 3 months at Karachi. After the Road Show a comprehensive report on Islamic Banking in Pakistan will be published.