April 1, 2006	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 2, 1427

KARACHI, March 31: The task force set up by the State Bank governor for the development of Islamic banking held its first meeting here on Friday. The task force will study the available knowledge infrastructure base and provide recommendations for broadening and enhancing the same. It will devise a standardized curriculum to be used by the educational institutions in Pakistan.

It was also decided that banks would be encouraged to develop a separate unit that would carry out research and development in Islamic banking.

The task force is comprised of Shariah scholars and representatives of banks, including Mufti Munib-ur-Rehman, Dr M. Tahir Mansuri, Dr Zubair Usmani, Mufti Muhammad Najeeb, Dr Muhammad Qaseem, Muhammad Imran and Mahmood Shafqat (coordinator from the State Bank).

Various stakeholders which will be the focus of the task force were identified. All the members were advised to submit any work already done by them in this field and carry out further study. It was also suggested that a report should be prepared on the current status of courses, diplomas and graduate and under-graduate level programmes being offered by the various educational institutions of Pakistan and globally, and will be presented in the next meeting.