Boris Johnson today launched an Islamic finance forum that City Hall hopes could create billions of pounds of investment and help “knock out” negative stereotypes of the religion.
More than 1,500 government officials and captains of industry from 100 countries will attend the World Islamic Economic Forum at the ExCeL centre in October.
Islamic finance, which was used to fund The Shard, is the fastest growing sector in the capital’s financial services industry.
The Mayor will be joined today by the prime minister of Malaysia, which has invested £7.9 billion in the capital over the past 10 years.
Sir Eddie Lister, the Mayor’s chief of staff, said: “We’ve had all the negatives of some of the recent terrorist issues and here we’ve got the positives of a great business opportunity.” London is home to three Islamic banks, 22 traditional banks that offer Islamic banking services, and 22 law firms that specialise in Sharia finance.
