by admin | May 25, 2021 | Islamic Finance, News
American University
Washington : American University is now offering a graduate certificate in Islamic finance to better prepare professionals to compete and do business in both emerging and established markets.
The curriculum includes courses that focus on the role of Islamic finance in the global economy and Islamic capital markets. Coursework also focuses on Sukuk (Islamic bonds), which are structured to generate returns without generating interest, which is prohibited in Islam.
For Ghiyath Naqshbandi, an executive in residence at American University’s Kogod School of Business in the US, the graduate certificate in Islamic finance is a dream now realized. Naqshbandi created the certificate as part of his larger vision of advancing Islamic finance. The United States is run by a very different kind of financial model, he said while noting that the American University is one of the only institutions in the country to offer a program.
“I am trying to establish a legacy,” Naqshbandi said. Coursework includes more than book learning. Naqshbandi regularly brings in experts to speak to classes. Speakers who visit and Skype in include CEOs, lawyers and high-profile Islamic finance professionals from Kuwait, and Bahrain, among other countries, News Wise reported.
“There are lots of opportunities for employment,” he continued. “It’s a new field and untapped field in the United States. We’ve been out of the loop for more than 15 years. London, Paris, Singapore, Shanghai and other countries have been taking the lead. It’s about time for us to capture some of the markets.”
Naqshbandi does not want finance professionals to be deterred by the “Islamic” in Islamic finance. Students enrolled in the certificate program come from a variety of backgrounds and religious traditions. Ultimately, he says, the program will help redefine the way professionals do business.
“Islamic finance is for humanity. It means socially responsible business, partnerships between entrepreneurs and financial institutions focusing on real markets. That means productive capacities to produce things that have a real impact on people’s lives.”
American University is a leader in global education, enrolling a diverse student body from throughout the United States and nearly 140 countries. Located in Washington, D.C., the university provides opportunities for academic excellence, public service, and internships in the nation’s capital and around the world.
The Kogod School of Business is the leading destination for the study of business in the Washington, D.C. metro area. The School has been a part of the D.C. business community for 60 years and is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. AACSB accreditation represents the highest standard of achievement for a business school worldwide. Kogod’s Washington, D.C. location serves as a laboratory for learning through work, internships, and other forms of experiential education.
—SM/OIC-UNA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, World
Beijing : Companies from China and the US signed on Wednesday 19 deals worth a total of $9 billion on the first day of the US President’s visit to the Chinese capital.
The agreements, which encompass sectors such as energy, aeronautics and agriculture, were signed at a ceremony presided by Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang and US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at the Great Hall of the People, Efe reported.
US President Donald Trump reached Beijing on Wednesday for a visit that includes meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and a business summit where both leaders will participate.
Trump was accompanied by officials from some 30 big companies from sectors such as aviation, agriculture, biotechnology and machinery.
Ross said in a brief statement that Washington aims to reduce the massive trade deficit with China.
Wang said that the agreements were a warm-up ahead of the favourable outcomes that await in Thursday’s bilateral talks.
China on Wednesday published data related to foreign trade during the first ten months of 2017 that showed that the country’s trade surplus with the US stood at $223 billion during the period, meaning a year-on-year increase of eight percent.
Trump had made his country’s trade deficit with China one of the focal points of his electoral campaign in 2016.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, World
Cuba-US
Havana : The Cuban government has said that US restrictions on travel and business with Havana represent a serious setback to bilateral relations.
The measures, which will take effect on Thursday, enact the memorandum signed in June by US President Donald Trump, in which he expressed his intention to reverse his predecessor Barack Obama’s detente with Cuba, reports Efe news.
The director for the US Division at Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Josefina Vidal, said in a statement on Wednesday that the new regulations would hurt both Cuba’s economy and US business interests.
“Has it worked in 55 years? It’s the old line: ‘We sanctioned Cuba, we put pressure on its government to bring about changes’. It does not work. It has never worked.
“They will harm not only the state and non-state sectors of our economy, but also the citizens of the US” who will see their right to travel to Cuba become “even more restricted”, Vidal said.
Among the measures is the ban on transactions with 179 companies and entities, including hotels, shops, tourist agencies, shipyards and even brands of soda and rum.
The measures follow the expulsion of 15 Cuban diplomats from the US in October after 22 of its own embassy officials in Havana fell ill after mysterious sonic attacks.
Trump said last month that he believed that the Cuban government was behind the attacks.
The US State Department has not blamed the Cuban government, saying that it did not know who was responsible for the attacks, which the FBI is investigating.
Washington, however, has accused Havana of failing to protect US diplomatic personnel working on Cuban territory.
The Cuban government has denied any involvement and said an investigation has been opened.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amit Kapoor,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts in building India’s global appeal for investors seems to have finally yielded returns in terms of the country’s performance in the World Bank Doing Business rankings. India witnessed its highest-ever jump of 30 places in the rankings, reaching the 100th place among 190 countries. Subsequently, it also joined the list of top 10 improvers for the first time and became the first South Asian country to achieve the feat.
The World Bank measures this in terms of a Distance to Frontier (DTF) metric, which shows the distance of the economy from the best performer in each category on a scale of 0 to 100, with the latter representing the frontier. India has shown a drastic improvement of 4.71 points over the last year from 56.05 to 60.76. To put things in perspective, China has witnessed an increase of 0.40 points.
India’s performance has been impressive by any standard. It has moved closer to the global standards in nine of the ten parameters on which the Doing Business rankings are based and has enforced reforms in eight of these categories over the last year. The three key reforms among these were resolving insolvency, ease of paying taxes online and protection of minority investors. Despite these improvements, the general sentiment has been to dismiss the rankings mainly for the flaws in its methodology.
First, the rankings are based on perception surveys of few entrepreneurs or professionals based on questions that are mostly subjective in nature. Second, they are not even based on the economic conditions of the entire economy but on one or two cities within a nation. For India, it is based on Delhi and Mumbai alone. However, the critics miss the point.
If India performs poorly even on such a limited study that chooses the best cities in the country, it speaks volumes of the business conditions across the country and is indicative of the scope of improvement that remains. Moreover, rankings are relative by definition and since the World Bank chooses a maximum of two cities for other countries as well, it should depict a near accurate performance of any country on a relative scale. Therefore, any improvement up the ladder cannot be summarily dismissed.
Further, reforms considered by the World Bank include a mix of central and state initiatives. Passing of central legislation like the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, that helped India jump from 136 to 103 in the “resolving insolvency” parameter have pan-India benefits and are not just limited to Delhi and Mumbai. Therefore, it would be incorrect to presume that merely focusing on a few cities is disassociated from reality even though the actions of state governments are not reflected.
Incidentally, India performs poorly in parameters where state government interference is maximum: Getting an electricity connection, starting a business and registering a property. This underlines the importance of policy coordination between the states and the Centre. Nevertheless, credit needs to be given where it is due for an improvement in rankings majorly driven by reforms undertaken by the central government over the last few years. It must be noted that the rankings have not taken into account the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Therefore, considerable potential remains for further improvement.
But it should also be kept in mind that these rankings are not an end in themselves and are far from perfect. A lot of it is based on policies which are on the books and do not necessarily capture the real experiences on the ground. After reforms are initiated to ease the business environment, the main task of implementation begins where the real problems emerge. For instance, the World Bank applauded India’s efforts at increasing access to credit with the adoption of a new insolvency and bankruptcy code. However, the parameters fail to recognise the problem that India is going through one of its slowest phases of credit growth and that banks are wary of lending so easily.
Moreover, a lot more parameters, apart from the ones considered in the Doing Business rankings, need to be considered to understand the business environment in India. The country’s dismal performance in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom (in which it is ranked 143, below most of its South Asian neighbours) and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (ranked 79th), reflect the areas that the country still needs to improve upon to better the business environment.
Therefore, the chest-thumping around the Doing Business ranking improvements needs to be seen in conjunction with these factors and worked upon to ease the problems faced by common businessmen. A premature celebration can be counter-productive.
(Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness, India. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets@kautiliya. Chirag Yadav, senior researcher, Institute for Competitiveness, India has contributed to the article)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Large Enterprise, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Technology
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
New Delhi : Faster adoption of Microsoft Office 365 and made for India ‘Kaizala’ app are helping several Indian enterprises — from banking to healthcare — unlock their true potential and transform digitally, India-born Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said here on Tuesday.
Addressing the India Today Conclave in the capital, Nadella said that in the world full of immense possibilities with disrupting technologies changing the business models, Microsoft has helped the State Bank of India (SBI) take a giant leap to Cloud and modernise its workplace.
“We are thrilled to partner with SBI on their digital transformation as they harness the Intelligent Cloud and build new digital capability to empower their employees; engage customers in new ways and transform their products and services, while maintaining security, trust and compliance with industry regulations,” Nadella said.
The SBI has chosen Office 365, the cloud-powered productivity solution, from Microsoft to improve communication and collaboration among its workforce.
This is one of the largest deployments of Office 365 in India, spanning SBI’s countrywide network of 23,423 branches, enabling 263,000 employees and servicing more than 500 million customer accounts.
“In the mobile-first and mobile-only country like India, the ‘Kaizala’ app is transforming Indian firms, from retail to healthcare, how they connect with customers and partners efficiently,” the Microsoft executive noted.
Microsoft ‘Kaizala’ has seen significant adoption among firms such as YES Bank, Apollo Telemedicine, United Phosphorous Limited and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, who are currently piloting the solution for their internal teams.
The Andhra Pradesh government is also using ‘Kaizala’ for real time governance.
Using ‘Kaizala’, firms can connect with their employees and the extended value chain.
The product offers a simple and familiar chat interface and goes beyond to make everyone more productive using Surveys, Polls, Jobs, Meetings and other actions, right in your chats.
“In this era of Intelligent Edge and Intelligent Cloud – and not to forget Artificial Intelligence (AI) that will drive this era — we need to make a great sense of humongous data that is around us to build right digital capabilities,” Nadella told the audience.
—IANS
