Tunis: Tunisia, where citizens started voting for a new parliament, plans to raise $500 million (Dh1.8 billion) from the sale of sukuk by the end of next month, according to Finance Minister Hakim Bin Hammouda.
Citigroup Inc, Natixis SA, Standard Chartered Plc and Qatar-based QInvest “expressed their willingness to cooperate” and consultations are ongoing, Hammouda said in an interview in Tunis on Friday.
Former Finance Minister Elyes Fakhfakh in July 2013 said the nation would raise as much as $700 million from the sale of Islamic bonds, the same month it
approved a sukuk law.
“The issuance of sukuk took a long time because of the complexity of this process and lack of experience in this field,” Hammouda said. “But in the end our government decided to have this challenge and to issue sukuk by the end of November.”
