Issuance of sukuk with longer tenure will match investment and risk management needs of takaful industry with largely long term liability. This, in particular, will greatly spur the growth potential of investment-linked products. I am sure you will also be briefed on the development of the sukuk market in Malaysia later on. Fourth, the increase in outsourcing and white labelling activities. Competitive elements and strong demand for takaful require takaful players to constantly search for solution towards greater efficiency and shorter time to market. There is strong potential for strong and experienced takaful players to leverage on their competitive strengths to be an ally of other players, especially from a new market, by becoming either outsourcing partner or white labelling provider. Fifth, as seen in international Islamic banking scene, there was growing participation of major conventional global players in the takaful and retakaful industry. In Malaysia , the strategy to encourage alliances and collaborative efforts between local and foreign players has resulted in a positive outcome with the licensing of new takaful operators consisting of joint ventures and consortia of local and foreign players which have registered early strong performance. In addition, the other 100%-owned Malaysian takaful operators are now actively looking for strategic partnership with foreign financial institutions so as to facilitate their expansion abroad and exploit opportunities in untapped markets. These five trends point to one direction – that the industry will continue to present high growth potential with growing demand, increasing competition, supported by greater sophistication and innovation of products and services.

The takaful operators are constantly in search for high level of expertise in all relevant areas in the management of takaful business including technical, actuarial, distribution, underwriting, investment, Shariah as well as strong leadership at the helm of a takaful operator. This talent war even persists in Malaysia where medium and long term plans to develop adequate human capital are in place. It may not be sustainable for the industry to rely on the current pool of intellectual capital in this rapidly growing industry. For this, concerted and collaborative efforts should be taken at the industry level involving all stakeholders to develop structured human talent developmental programmes at all levels which include the leaders, technical personnel as well as the regulators. The organization of this Convention by IBFIM and MTA presents a model for such collaboration between takaful stakeholders in promoting human talent development, not only for Malaysian takaful industry, but also for the global takaful sector. The industry needs also to consider further proactive approach to address this issue. For example, the industry may take a united stance to train a specific number of new talent in key areas. For Malaysia alone, assuming that a good candidate requires two years of training to be a well-rounded takaful practitioner, if each operator is able to train 50 new talent at various levels in specific key areas, we will have at least 2000 new talent in 2009. In fact, we should do better.