Moody's Islamic Finance Group global head Khalid Ferdous Howladar said the EPF's and KWAP's explicit support for investments in Shariah-compliant assets will drive demand for the segment. Recall that the EPF announced the allocation of around RM100 billion to a new Islamic fund dedicated to Shariah-compliant investments, while KWAP had also announced plans to become a fully-fledged Islamic pension fund. When you have a sovereign government pension fund allocating RM100 billion, that's a large number. "When external investors see this — that the state pension funds are participating — this may encourage them to issue sukuk, knowing that somebody has an explicit allocation. "Indonesia is still relatively under-represented in Islamic finance.

Source: The Edge Markets September 20, 2016 09:56 UTC