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NAIROBI – Kenya – keen to boost economic growth through infrastructure reform – will issue 31.5 billion shillings ($391.8 million) worth of infrastructure bonds in its fiscal year beginning next month, a senior Treasury official said on Thursday.

Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta increased the deficit as a percentage of GDP to 6.8 percent from 6.6 percent, to fund a range of increased spending in key areas like roads, during his budget speech last week.

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ABIDJAN – Africa is slowly emerging from the global recession and should grow 4.5 percent this year and just over five percent in 2011, a report by the African Development Bank and the OECD forecast Monday.

The rate of growth is an improvement on the average 2.5 percent experienced by the continents 53 states in 2009 but still short of the six percent annual rise achieved between the global financial crisis exploded in 2008.

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WASHINGTON – The economic news out of Africa is good, spurred by strong demand from global markets for African oil, minerals and agricultural products.

The African Development Bank reports the region is one of the fastest growing in the world, with a projected overall growth rate of more than 4 percent in 2010, more than double that of most developed countries still recovering from the economic meltdown that began in late 2008.

The crisis did have an impact on many African economies, which were registering growth rates of more than 6 percent before it struck.

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JEDDAH: Fernvale Investments (Mauritius) Pte Ltd. is making a capital commitment of $75 million to Pan-African Investment Partners II Ltd. (the second Kingdom Zephyr fund, known as PAIP II). This was announced here on Monday by Kingdom Holding Company (KHC).

Fernvale is a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Temasek Holdings (Private) Ltd.

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JEDDAH – The Public Investment Fund (PIF) has agreed to contribute 20 percent of the SR2 billion capital of the new home finance company, Khaled Al-Aboodi, CEO of Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), announced here Sunday.

This represents the single largest investment in a mortgage company in the history of PIF, he said.

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JEDDAH – The Islamic Development Bank plans to issue Islamic bonds (Sukuk), worth a total of $5 billion over this year and the four following years, its president said on Tuesday.

“We hope that we can mobilize $1 billion every year beginning in 2010 and for a period of five years,” IDB President Ahmed Mohamed Ali told Reuters.

The planned Sukuk would beef up the capability of the triple-A lender to allow it to increase lending to soften the impact of the global financial and economic crisis on some of its 56 member countries, many of them poor states in Africa, he added. “We plan to raise $1 billion every year and for five years from 2010. The issue would be sukuk and the maturity is normally for five years,” Mohamed Ali added.

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JEDDAH: The Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) has entered into a joint venture agreement with Capitas Group, LLC, a US financial services firm specializing in developing and managing Shariah-compliant finance companies, to form a management company dedicated to the global development of the Shariah-compliant finance industry. ICD is a multilateral financial institution, which is part of the Islamic Development Bank.

The new company, Capitas Group International, will be based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and will combine the experience of Capitas Group in developing Shariah-compliant financial services platforms with ICDs comprehensive access to Islamic finance markets.

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RIYADH – China has pledged its support to the Kingdom in its fight against armed infiltrators along the border with Yemen, said Yang Hong Lin, Chinese Ambassador to the Kingdom, on Tuesday.

The ambassador was speaking during a press conference in Riyadh before the scheduled three-day visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to Riyadh from Jan. 12.

The minister – who traditionally begins the year with a trip to Africa – will visit Saudi Arabia before heading home to China, said Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.

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JEDDAH – The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) announced on Tuesday that Standard & Poors, one of the leading rating agencies in the world, has reaffirmed IsDBs AAA long term and A-1+ short term issuer ratings with a “stable” outlook. Standard & Poors said the IsDBs ratings are supported by very strong capitalization and liquidity, a good asset portfolio and preferred-creditor treatment and other shareholders support.

IDB is one of the few multilateral development financial institutions rated by the three leading international rating agencies – Standard & Poors, Fitch and Moodys with the highest possible rating (Triple-A). Moreover, IsDB has been recognized as eligible for Zero Risk-Weight by Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2004 and the European Union in May 2007.

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THE imminent launch in early 2010 of the Shariah-compliant Structured Trade Finance Fund by Gatehouse Bank PLC, the latest wholesale Islamic bank authorized by the UKs Financial Services Authority (FSA), and DDCAP Limited, the London-based wholesale Islamic market intermediary company, will see a welcome return to a classical bread-and-butter asset class and financing activity, which the Islamic finance industry seems to have neglected over the last few years.

The industry, according to seasoned Islamic bankers, has become pre-occupied with the more lucrative sukuk (Islamic bond) market and the bricks-and-mortar real estate market over the last few years, especially in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. They stress that trade finance ought to be a major asset class in the global Islamic finance industry for several reasons.

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