نقش بازار سهام در تامین امور مالی توسعه اسلامی: شواهد از سودان

This paper assesses the impact of stock exchange funding in the Shari'ya compliant Islamic economy of Sudan. Evidence suggests that while Islamic financial instruments have considerable potential in facilitating development finance through their emphasis on partnership this is better achieved by the banking system rather than the Khartoum Stock Exchange. A case study of the Sudan Telecommunications company shows that larger firms able to cross-list elsewhere are likely to choose regional markets in preference to their domestic one thus benefiting from lower costs of equity. However, governance preferences are likely to favour block shareholders following the Islamic finance partnership concept.

Islamic finance is one of the fastest growing sectors of the global banking industry and has risen to prominence recently through its distinctive adherence to the concept of partnership embodied within its profit–loss–sharing (PLS) paradigm. While many well known international institutions such as HSBC, Citigroup and Societe Generale have recently established shari'ya compliant banking arms there has been a considerable proliferation of Islamic Equity Funds (IEFs) between major financial centres such as London and New York as well as in Malaysia and the Arabian Gulf markets of Bahrain and Dubai (Fayyad and Daly, 2011 and Hayat and Kraeussl, 2011). In contrast Islamic development banks have a longer history with the first institutions being established in Kuwait and Egypt during the 1960's and 1970's while the Islamic Development Bank was created in 1975 (Rowey et al., 2006). This paper considers the impact of the stock exchange as opposed to banking sector in the provision of cost effective Islamic development finance. Furthermore it considers the implications arising from full shari'ya compliance in terms of market segmentation and the cost of equity experienced by listed firms. As such we extend the literature which is largely based on the normative prescriptions of Islamic finance as a discipline (see El-Din and El-Din, 2002 and Naughton and Naughton, 2000 for an extended discussion) in considering the practical implications on listed firms arising from full shari'ya compliance with a case study on the Sudan Telecommunications company (Sudatel) that has been able to list on regional exchanges away from its home market. In particular we find evidence that full shari'ya compliance leads to higher costs of equity experienced by listed firms that can be mitigated through cross-listing. Furthermore we highlight that the significant relationship orientated nature of Islamic finance infers that the often well developed banking sector in many developing countries is better placed to administer shari'ya compliant financial products alongside microcredit institutions as opposed to stock market institutions. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the theoretical aspects of Islamic economics and finance as a sub-discipline before introducing the principle factors governing regulation and product design in this context. Section 3 reviews the prominent Middle East and North African (MENA) regional stock exchanges and the institutions defining the Khartoum Stock Market (KSE). Section 4 studies the role of the KSE in the financing strategy of the Sudan Telecommunications company, an example of a prominent multinational enterprise in a developing Islamic economy. Section 5 concludes and suggests policy implications.

This paper addresses the important questions regarding the ability of a fully shari'ya compliant stock exchange within an Islamic financial system to provide an effective source of development capital. It assesses the impact of the Khartoum Stock Exchange on the Sudan economy and reviews the financing options available for larger firms within the fully shari'ya compliant Sudanese financial system using the Sudan Telecommunications company as a case study. There are a number of difficulties in a study of this sort. Firstly, there is little empirical work on the impact of stock exchange financing within a fully shari'ya compliant Islamic financial system in a developing context. Then there are the conceptual problems that results from the differing interpretations and understandings of Qu'ran and canonical texts by the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence. This is a potential source of conflict in forming a policy response to the rapidly evolving area of commercial innovation within stock exchange finance. A major issue is the existence of strong-informational efficiency that follows from Islamic requirements for full disclosure of all publicly and privately available information, which contradicts finance theory in the west, although while this is based on common shared Islamic behavioural values and ethics the frequent lack of coherent regulation and appropriate enforcement mechanisms in developing countries infers that this assumption is at best tenuous. This is not simply a problem in the application of financial models but also in practice, as small family owned firms seek to retain sensitive information or would find the costly compliance of auditing and accounting measures to be prohibitive. With respect to economic development problems arise due to the limited range of Islamic finance products that are easily traded and compatible with stock exchange operations. While there is evidence of positive corporate governance and monitoring as a result of mudarabah partnership-based instruments in contrast to debt contracts commonly associated with western financial markets, these contracts are perceived as risky, which deters investors. Therefore, currently the partnership aspects in an Islamic financial system and the post-transaction monitoring costs arising from shari'ya compliance favour the relationship-based banking system and developing Islamic countries will continue to have a minimal stock markets emphasis. Larger firms such as the Sudan Telecommunications company that can cross list on regional exchanges benefit from substantial reductions in costs of equity capital.