Egypt's Shura Council approves Islamic bonds law

Egypt's Shura Council, Upper House of Egypt's parliament, has approved a law regulating the issuance of Islamic bonds named "Sukuk", the state-run al-Ahram reported. The law was passed on Tuesday night following several hours of debate, as lawmakers of the Salafist Al-Nour party insisted that the new law should first be referred to al-Azhar to be revised by the Council of Seniro scholars, but this requirement wasn't accepted by the majority. Three months ago, Egypt's cabinet approved a law regulating sukuk dealings, but the law was rejected by al-Azhar that saw that it violated the Islamic law (Sharia) because it would allow foreigners to own key assets in the country. The cabinet made some amendments on the law to be compatible with the Islamic Sharia, but the amended law has not been referred to Al-Azhar anew. Egypt is currently struggling for a rescue loan of 4.8 billion U.S. dollars from the IMF to survive a severe financial crisis created by two years of turmoil and instability following the upheaval in early 2011 that ousted former president Hosni Mubarak. Egypt's Cabinet under Prime Minister Hesham Qandil is trying to knock all the doors to relieve the ailing economy as the budget deficit is expected to reach 26.74 billion U.S. dollars in the fiscal year 2012-2013. According to the Egyptian Finance Minister al-Morsi Hegazy, such Islamic bonds, which would be issued by the Finance Ministry, were expected to generate 10 billion U.S. dollars for the Egyptian government per year.