The CMH, which will showcase the sophistication of Malaysia's Islamic financial industry, has tremendous global potentials. As the CMH is designed to be a multi-currency platform, it could enhance liquidity and risk management capacity of the international Islamic banking community. Furthermore, it could be harnessed into a cost effective global platform to develop universally acceptable Islamic financial products for the financial and capital market. Overtime, in making CMH into a truly global exchange, the scope of the exchange-traded product offerings could be expanded to include other commodities and the level of participation should be expanded to include players from outside the financial services industry as well. BIS Review 93/2009  1  The MIFC initiative which was launched in 2006 has the objective to internationalise Malaysia's Islamic financial industry and integrate it with the global Islamic financial system. Thus, for the MIFC, CMH provides an important link to elevate further the capacity of Malaysia to serve as a global hub for Islamic finance. It will support the development of a strong network with other financial centres and increase the inter-linkages. The CMH could play a significant role under this initiative by facilitating the capital and liquidity flows from one financial centre to the other. It is envisaged that CMH could be a component to alleviate the problems arising from a lack of cross-border inter-bank transactions currently faced in the global Islamic financial landscape. Eventually, by enabling the flows of funds amongst the global Islamic financial institutions, this would increase the inter-dependency and networking amongst themselves.

Mohd Razif bin Abd Kadir: Islamic financial services industry – developments in Malaysia Speech by Mr Mohd Razif bin Abd Kadir, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Signing Ceremony of Memorandum of Participation for Commodity Murabahah House, Kuala Lumpur, 28 July 2009. *  *  *  It is my great pleasure to be here today at the Signing Ceremony of Memorandum of Participation for Commodity Murabahah House (CMH). This event, jointly hosted by Bank Negara Malaysia and Bursa Malaysia, marks another milestone in the development of the Islamic financial services industry. This pioneering effort, mooted about two years ago, is a collaborative initiative of Bank Negara Malaysia, Securities Commission of Malaysia (SC), Bursa Malaysia and the market players under the MIFC initiative. CMH, which is scheduled to be launched in mid-August, is a purposefully designed exchanged-traded platform to facilitate commodity murabahah transactions. It is the first internet based platform in the world with crude palm oil (CPO) as its underlying base commodity. I am also pleased to note here that CMH has received the endorsement of the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities and is supported by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA) and Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) as well as the CPO industry players. CMH will provide another dimension to the already robust liquidity management infrastructure of the Islamic banking industry in Malaysia; thus providing market players with greater tools to manage their assets and liabilities.