Islamic finance treads fine political line in Kazakhstan
By Robin Paxton
Mon Jul 2, 2012 7:29am EDT
ASTANA (Reuters) - In Kazakhstan, a farmer and an imam approach the Islamic Development Bank for a loan. The farmer, an Orthodox Christian, needs tractors to plough his fields. The imam wants to repair the roof of his mosque. Which one gets the loan?
Yerlan Baidaulet, a banker who is one of Kazakhstan's foremost proponents of Islamic finance, received both requests. He sent the imam away with a donation from his own pocket on the grounds that Islamic banking permits charity or grants, not loans, to religious institutions.
The farmer, an ethnic Russian, got the loan he needed. Long since repaid, it was the springboard to the growth of a major farming enterprise in the grain belt surrounding Kazakhstan's futuristic capital, Astana.
"Islamic finance isn't only for Muslims," said Baidaulet, executive director for the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe at the IDB, a Saudi Arabia-based multilateral lender. "Even dollar bills are printed with the words: 'In God We Trust'."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/us-islamic-finance-kazakhstan-idUSBRE8610JO20120702
