Ladies and Gentlemen, The establishment of the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF) reflects Malaysia's continuous effort and commitment towards development of a progressive Islamic financial industry by developing and enhancing human intellectual capital in Islamic finance. These efforts will also reinforce the efforts to position Malaysia as an international Islamic financial centre (MIFC). Since its establishment in March this year, INCEIF has made significant progress. To date, I am pleased to announce that INCEIF has now more than 600 registered students with 26 per cent of them coming from 21 countries. As a move to develop and encourage research in Islamic Finance, INCEIF is offering research grants for ongoing as well as new research projects. Grants are available on a competitive basis and I am pleased to note that the research grant to be awarded today covers a broad range of areas ranging from Islamic financing, product innovation, risk management and governance. In establishing a world class centre for education and training in Islamic finance, of importance, is the combined collaborative efforts among industry players, researchers, academicians and Shariah scholars. The critical shortage of available technical talent in the Islamic financial industry can be addressed if all the relevant participants to the Islamic financial sector - the industry, the regulators, the market participants and the academia are willing to forge their efforts together on a continuous basis to elevate the performance level of Islamic finance.

Today, we are paving the way for closer collaboration between INCEIF and the institutions of higher learning in Malaysia to realise our common objective of developing the pool of expertise in Islamic finance. This collaborative move, would establish a network of mutual co-operation and collaboration that would strengthen the efforts between the institutions of higher learning in the areas of curriculum development, research, training, exchange of ideas and information, and resources in Islamic finance. This partnership in connecting the knowledge communities in Malaysia needs to be developed and maintained on a long-term basis. Entering into strategic alliances with institutions of higher learning, Islamic financial institutions and other organisations would create greater synergy, which may bring about new approaches, new technologies and new areas of specialization. Collaborative efforts between INCEIF and institutions of higher learning in particular, would strengthen the ability to leverage on the respective institutions' expertise in research. The introduction of new research findings in Islamic financial engineering could pave the way for increased innovation of new products. This would contribute towards broadening and deepening Islamic financial markets and thus strengthen the overall development of the Islamic financial industry. In addition, active collaboration between academic researchers and the practitioners will enable the practical application of research findings. BIS Review 125/2006  1  One of the strategic steps that INCEIF has initiated is the forging into strategic alliances with the five takaful operators to collaborate in promoting and undertaking research, development, training and education in Islamic finance.