KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 17): Malaysia's Employees Provident Fund (EPF) will allocate a further 50 billion ringgit (US$11.20 billion) to its Islamic fund in 2018, potentially boosting the domestic Islamic finance market. The additional injection was more than the 20 to 30 billion ringgit the fund had estimated it would allocate for 2018. Of the initial 100 billion ringgit allocated, a total of 59.03 billion ringgit have been taken up, the pension fund said in a statement on Tuesday. Chief executive officer Shahril Ridza Ridzuan said the fund had anticipated that at least half of the initial 100 billion ringgit fund to be taken up. "For (the 2018 shariah fund), we have allocated 50 billion ringgit as further injection," Ridzuan said in the statement.

Source: The Edge Markets January 17, 2017 06:11 UTC