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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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TOKYO – Japan agreed Sunday to give a new lifeline to troubled Japan Airlines by doubling a state-funded loan for the carrier to 200 billion yen ($2.2 billion).

The Japan governments decision comes after shares in Asias largest carrier plunged to a record low last week when investors were spooked by reports that bankruptcy was a possible option for the beleaguered airline.

In November, the state-run Development Bank had set a credit line of 100 billion yen for Japan Airlines and has already paid out just over half of the total.

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BEIJING: China is expected to grow by about 9.5 percent in 2010, state media quoted a government think tank as saying Friday, exceeding forecasts made by outside experts for the new year.

The worlds third-largest economy will be boosted by double-digit growth in real estate investment and mild inflation, the State Councils Development Research Center said in a report published in the China Economic Times. In 2010, the external environment will remain rather grim but it will not deteriorate further, Zhang Liqun, a macroeconomist at the center, said in the report.

Zhang added that exports a key driver of economic growth would start to grow again in the coming year.

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JEDDAH: Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu and Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu discussed various regional issues at their meeting held at the new OIC headquarters on Friday night. Both were accompanied by their respective high-level delegations.

After the nearly 90-minute meeting, Davutoglu told reporters that the discussions centered on the issue of bilateral relations between the OIC and Turkey, and ways to develop these relations for the benefit of the causes of the Muslim Ummah and its interests.

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