Global sukuk issuance hits $80.35bn in first half

The global primary market volume has reached USD80.35 billion in eight months ended August 2014 (8M14), 6.8 percent higher than the USD75.23bln volume in 8M13, specialized economic report showed Sunday.
"Despite a decline in issuances in the two months June and July, sovereign and quasi-sovereign issuers, in particular from Malaysia, have steered the market to ensure 2014's annual issuances to date remain on track to overcome last year's annual issuances volume of USD119.7 billion," Kuwait Finance House said in its monthly sukuk report.
"A strong pipeline waits in the remaining months of 2014 including debut sovereign issuances by the AAA-rated jurisdictions of Luxembourg and Hong Kong and also by the Emirate of Sharjah and the Sultanate of Oman." KFH also stated that global primary sukuk market activity remained moderate in the month of August as a total of USD7.54 billion worth of new sukuk were issued, representing a 5.0 percent decline compared to the USD7.95 billion issued last month.
"The volumes in July and August have remained subdued compared to the almost USD11.6 billion worth of new sukuk issued in June. The reduction in issuances in the last two months is on account of two reasons: (1) the advent of the Islamic month of Ramadan in July; and (2) the summer spell in the GCC markets," it noted.
Analyzing by the country of sukuk origination, the report disclosed that the primary market activity was heavily concentrated in Malaysia which accounted for 92.3 percent or USD6.96 billion of the total new issuances in August (Jul-14: USD6.41 or 80.6 percent; Jun-14: USD6.1 billion or 52.8 percent).
"The Malaysian market share has proportionately surged given the absence of issuances from the GCC region. During August, the only GCC-based issuances were by the Central Bank of Bahrain which raised USD149 million or 2.0 percent market share through its regular local currency liquidity management Sukuk al-Salam. Similarly, liquidity management sukuk were also issued in Gambia and Turkey," reads the report.