. diversification and innovation of financial structures. this would involve either applying innovative islamic products on a stand alone basis or applying a combination of islamic instruments to suit project finance needs. in attempting the latter, it needs to be ensured that vanilla islamic products such as murabaha, ijara and diminishing musharaka etc. are implemented with their necessary preconditions, consistent with shariah principles, to promote modes that can be used to finance commercial and project finance activity. this would require greater reliance on equity based financing, given that it is akin to participation and risk sharing consistent with infrastructure financing requirements and islamic principles. at the same time, it requires financial engineering, flexibility in the evolving sahriah system and alliance both among domestic and with the bigger global players ( such as standard chartered, hsbc, ubs, citibank etc. ) to diversify islamic financial structured products to support project finance in addition to associated real estate, shipping, trade, and aircraft financing. islamic financing products / structures are now quite common in middle east and saudi arabia and have gained ground in non - muslim countries too. in most cases it has to be recognized that islamic financing is incorporated within a multi - sourced project financing offering, along side the conventional project financing structures backed with or without supportive credit enhancement or export credit agencies financing. the islamic financing element of the project is provided pari passu with the other senior debt. istisna ’ s and variant structure of ijara are frequent products used. if required, there should be standard legal structure for establishing and operating with ease islamic spv as the financing vehicle. islamic finance tranches are known to offer additional benefit of competitive pricing and tenor. there should be harmonization of these alternate and multi - financing legal and regulatory structures and appreciation that conventional project financing documentation could be acceptable to different shariah boards / committees. pakistan has been exposed to these structures, given its earlier experience with the hub river project, which in early 1990s incorporated islamic tranche of istisna, and more of such recent deals. in designing such structures there has to be more tolerance among participants to : • integrate islamic and conventional funds to allow co - financed projects with different players ; • accept ownership risks ( since in all islamic transactions, lender is at some stage the owner of financed goods ) but with comfort of clarity of legal issues surrounding ownership ; • ensure proper tax treatment of the proposed islamic financing structures, avoiding adverse treatment relative to

ignazio visco : tommaso padoa - schioppa, “ architect … ” personal remarks by mr ignazio visco, deputy director general of the bank of italy, at the ceremony in memory of tommaso padoa - schioppa, european university institute, badia fiesolana, 28 january 2011. * * * a prominent ( but non - academic ) economist, a leading central banker ( in italy and in europe ), a “ non - political ” politician ( dedicated to the “ polity ” rather than to the politique politicienne ), tommaso padoa - schioppa spanned all of these professions in the course of his eminent career. tommaso ’ s achievements were substantial, as everyone recognizes. he is rightly considered as one of the “ architects of the euro. ” a man of vision, an independent mind, an indefatigable civil servant – we have been fortunate indeed to have had tommaso padoaschioppa as colleague, friend, mentor. mine will not be a eulogy or a historical account of tommaso ’ s many achievements. division of labour and the time constraint have counselled concentrating on his contributions as an officer of the bank of italy. perhaps the term “ officer ” is a bit limited, although i am sure that he would have appreciated it. he was the head of the money market division of the bank ’ s research department from 1975 to 1979, when he left to become director general for economic and financial affairs at the european commission. he returned to the bank in 1983, was named deputy director general in 1984 and served in that capacity for thirteen years. he certainly left his mark. developments in at least three areas would most likely have been substantially different, and with a cost - benefit balance substantially in the red, had his influence not been exercised so effectively. the three areas comprise the “ reshaping of monetary policy ”, as he came to define it, 1 the promotion and implementation of a groundbreaking reform of the payment system 2 and the process of european monetary unification. 3 these recollections of mine are certainly not exhaustive, and if in places they are marred by some inevitable inaccuracies, let me apologize in advance. more than two decades of observation of tommaso ’ s accomplishments at the bank, with at times lengthy discussions, followed by a decade and a half of exchanges after his departure to