sarah alade : promoting inclusive growth and transformative development in africa welcome address by dr sarah alade, acting governor of the central bank of nigeria, at the caucus meeting of african central bank governors on “ industrialization for inclusiveness and transformative development in africa ”, as part of the 7th joint annual meeting of the au conference of ministers of economy and finance and eca conference of african ministers of finance, planning and economic development sideline, abuja, 27 march 2014. * * * her excellency, the chairperson of african union commission, his excellency, the executive secretary of uneca, honourable governors, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen 1. it is my pleasure to welcome you all to the first caucus meeting of african central bank governors, holding on the sideline of the 7th joint annual meeting of the uneca au african ministers of economic, finance, planning and economic development. i hope you had a pleasant trip to abuja, nigeria. 2. distinguished colleagues, you will recall that this caucus meeting came into being by our collective desire to be part of the solution to africa ’ s growth and development agenda. as african central bank governors ’ we made it known that we wanted to play both active and supportive role where necessary in setting the african agenda during annual economic planning and development conference in africa. this initiative, therefore, places higher responsibility on us to contribute in steering policy dialogue and implementing the agreed recommendations that would emerge from such deliberations. it places ownership and makes coordination and implementation easier as all stakeholders are in agreement. 3. i am delighted that this meeting would provide a platform for african central bank governors to provide input in the design and implementation of effective strategies to promote industrialization for inclusive growth and transformative development in africa. 4. accordingly, the meeting has pooled together, a team of highly resourceful and knowledgeable professionals from central banks, uneca, auc, world bank, imf, and other development institutions to address the theme of the conference. 5. honourable governors, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, it is important to state that african central banks are inundated with several global challenges such as ; the aftermaths of 2007 / 2009 global financial crisis ; incessant natural disasters like flooding with the resultant effect of rising food prices ; exchange rate volatility due to dependence on primary commodity exports for revenue ; capital reversal inflow as a result of tapering in the us, among others. 6. despite these daunting

the benefit of all stakeholders. two important aspects of islamic banking that i would like to safely highlight today are that islamic finance encourages profit and risk sharing, thus involving greater participation of both banker and customer, a notion that could easily be adopted by conventional banking and of course the proscription of usery or riba in islamic finance. in fact usery has also been condemned in the vedic texts as well as in religious texts from budhism, judaism, christianity and islam. at times many ancient nations, such as, china, greece and rome, have outlawed loans with interest. the pivotal change took place in 1545 in the english - speaking world through “ an act against userie ” promulgated during the reign of king henry the viii. while others followed suit, the muslims kept to their traditions alongside conventional banking. allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to share with you our views on islamic banking in mauritius. one participant dr manfred had a comment yesterday on how we are promoting islamic banking when muslims are modestly represented here. first of all, we should be bis central bankers ’ speeches clear in our mind that ib is not reserved for muslims only. there is no such tag on ib products either in mauritius or in any other part of the world. the products are designed according to defined principles and are vetted by learned scholars. if you like the product, you adopt it. mr jaufeerally, our first speaker yesterday, referred to a very basic example, that of chicken briani. all of you may know that briani is a very popular dish for local muslims. i would go further by saying that as muslims ( again i am not a scholar here ) there can never be any harm to share a halal product. the reverse may not be permissible. our objective at the central bank is to offer an alternate mode of finance to local stakeholders and also to enlarge our offerings in the offshore financial domain. the tendency to focus on profits alone may not always be socially desirable. of course, we do not dispute the fact that banks should be profitable, but in these crisis times where customers ’ rights are being propelled in the forefront, banks should also consider to share the burden of customers. islamic finance in africa modern islamic finance was born in egypt when a commercial bank opened its cairo branch to process the financial transactions relating to the construction of the suez canal in 1890 and the notion of interest or riba was criticized by the then islamic scholars. consequently, the muslim world