of islamic financial transactions. global strategic initiatives recognizing the importance of ensuring financial resilience of the islamic financial services industry in this more challenging environment, collaborative international efforts have been undertaken. spearheading the strategic development of the industry is the ten - year master plan for the development of the global islamic financial industry, a joint initiative by the islamic development bank ( idb ) and the ifsb. this strategic initiative provides a blueprint for the orderly development of islamic financial system across jurisdictions to achieve the common goal of a vibrant, efficient and progressive islamic financial services industry. this blueprint also outlines the broad strategies for the development of the key components of the various parts of the islamic financial sector, including the guide for determining the best options for the different stages of development of the islamic financial system so as to ensure that it would contribute to the growth and development of the economy and also become an integral component of the international financial system. of importance is that the master plan not only represents a blueprint for the development of a cohesive and a comprehensive islamic financial system but also it promotes increased understanding and appreciation for those that wish to participate in the islamic financial system, including providing information on the expected level of achievements that are required. another important global initiative in islamic finance already mentioned is the promulgation of the international prudential and supervisory standards by the ifsb. the ifsb has fast - tracked the development of these standards to address the unique and peculiar characteristic of risks of islamic financial contracts. fundamental to the implementation of the standards is the strengthening of the risk management capabilities of the financial institutions. in addition, the implementation of these standards needs to be complemented by the continuous surveillance so as to ensure the early identification of the new emerging risks and to ensure that the institutions undertake to manage the risks. resilience reinforced by the intrinsic features of islamic finance the intrinsic features of islamic finance also contribute to its overall resilience. this is derived from the shariah principles, the key pillar of islamic finance. the shariah injunctions require that islamic financial transactions be accompanied by an underlying productive activity resulting in a close link between financial and productive flows. under the risk sharing concept, there is an explicit risk sharing by the financier and the customer. in this arrangement, the real activity is expected to generate sufficient wealth to compensate for the risks. parties to the transactions would thus be insulated from excessive risks exposure given that the shariah prohibits the excess leverage and involvement in speculative financial activities

many of the low - hanging fruit from the ict revolution have already been picked. diminishing returns to r & d may have set in. and other secular forces – including adverse demographics and rising inequality – may have acted as additional headwinds to growth. this view sometimes goes by the name secular stagnation. an alternative school of thought believes we may instead be on the cusp of a new great wave of innovation, a fourth industrial revolution. this revolution in innovation will, it is said, be jet - propelled by a set of potentially new gpts, among them ai, big data and robotics. for technology optimists, the story is one of secular innovation, not stagnation. and on this view, the potential gains in productivity and growth could be as large as any of the earlier industrial revolutions. schumpeter ( 1942 ). gordon ( 2012 ), fernald ( 2014 ). summers ( 2013 ) and rachel and smith ( 2015 ). secular stagnation theory was originally proposed by hansen ( 1938 ) in the aftermath of the great depression brynjolfsson and mcafee ( 2014 ) discuss ‘ the second machine age ’. brynjolfsson, rock and syverson ( 2017 ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches typically, the two sides of this argument are taken to be in a secular struggle : the dark forces of secular stagnation pitted against the dynamic forces of secular innovation. yet in practice, both arguments have merit. they are certainly not mutually incompatible. it is perfectly possible to imagine a world of rapid innovation which nonetheless leaves large swathes of society in its slipstream. more than that, recent research suggests this is a likely outcome of the fourth industrial revolution. there are good conceptual grounds for thinking the displacement effects of the fourth industrial revolution may be larger than ever - previously. every industrial revolution has resulted in a hollowing - out, typically of mid - skilled tasks. historically, that has meant largely manual, labour - intensive tasks. machine has replaced human in activities that are routine and repetitive. the future could well be very different. for example, the dawning of ai means that humans will no longer having the cognitive playing field to themselves. thinking or non - routine tasks may increasingly be taken up by machines. they will be able to process more quickly, more cheaply and with fewer errors than their human counterpart, at least in some activities. that could