##ebtedness. most certainly, such principles cannot be harmful to borrowers! another principle in islamic finance that sets it apart from conventional finance – and which assumes a particular relevance in the global financial crisis – is that uncertainty in contractual terms and conditions is not permissible. all the terms and conditions of a financial transaction need to be clearly understood. this principle has insulated islamic financial institutions from exposure to toxic assets. fools rush in where angels fear to tread, they say. then the herd instinct takes over … and before you know where you are, you find yourself in the kind of crisis that has engulfed conventional finance, in particular, the world of shadow banking. islamic finance operators do not have this option. they can only enter ground that has been declared compliant by sharia scholars. global financial crisis the current global financial crisis has brought into sharper focus some worrisome aspects of contemporary financial markets. at the heart of our current global crisis has been the fateful distance of much of modern finance from the real economy. per contra, at the heart of islamic banking and islamic capital markets is the salutary insistence on bringing these two elements closer together. we cannot turn the clock of globalisation and of global finance back. but we do need to look for a better way of managing our affairs insofar as money and finance is concerned. to quote raghuram rajan, former chief economist of the imf, the time has come for “ regulatory soul - searching ”. the economic model which follows from islamic finance is very different from the “ originate and distribute ” model which has failed conventional finance so spectacularly. the founding principles of islamic finance, the prohibition of interest and the close linkage between the real economy and finance, offer a viable alternative to the conventional financial system. at a time when global conventional finance markets are in such a state of turmoil, islamic finance does represent an appealing alternative. the short - term fixation on private benefits by hook or by crook, which has turned yesterday ’ s financial wizards into today ’ s leading exponents of white collar and financial crime, must give way to a clearer focus on the longer term and the public good aspects of our financial interaction with our fellow - man. now, in today ’ s world, keynes and his precepts are experiencing a revival. it has taken open clamouring for government interventionism and the introduction of fiscal stimulus measures on a mind - boggling scale to remind us that “ we are all keynes

##economic variables, such as output, spending, employment, prices, wages and so on. however, we do not rely on the official data exclusively, for a number of reasons. first, it takes time for the official data to be collated and published. for instance, the preliminary estimate of gdp growth in q2 only appears tomorrow, almost a month after the quarter ended. second, early official estimates are often based on incomplete samples, with missing information extrapolated from other indicators. as more information accrues over time, so the data gradually then get revised. and significant revisions can still occur for some years after the event. for an example, look at chart 1. this plots the initial and current official estimates of four - quarter uk gdp growth, as well as the range of the intervening estimates. as you can see, the picture provided by the mature data sometimes looks quite different to that furnished by the first estimates. for instance, the initial estimates suggested a sharp slowdown in 1998 in the wake of the asia and long - term capital management crises, whereas the current estimates suggest that the pace of expansion barely eased. for more recent quarters, the initial and current estimates are closer together, but that may simply reflect the comparative youth of the latest estimates, as well as the fact that the 2007 blue book did not involve a full balancing of the national accounts. finally, even mature data that has gone through the full revision process may still not give a fully accurate picture because of the intrinsic difficulty of measuring a particular economic concept, for instance the value added by the financial sector. in such cases, the ons are instead forced to employ proxies, but sometimes these are just not all that good a guide. the need to form as up - to - date and reliable a picture of the current state of the economy as possible means that the mpc makes extensive use of business surveys alongside the official data. that includes not only the quarterly industrial trends survey and its monthly sibling, but also the other, more recent, cbi surveys, such as those covering the distributive trades and service sectors. the various surveys carried out by other organisations, such as the chartered institute of purchasing supply and the british chambers of commerce, are also valuable sources of information for us. moreover, we have our own network of 12 regional agencies, whose role is to collect intelligence as to what is happening on the ground. collectively, our regional agents have about 8000 business contacts and they represent