Dubai: Al Hilal Bank, the Abu Dhabi-based Islamic lender, yesterday announced its decision to establish an Islamic bank in Kazakhstan. The initiative marks Al Hilal's first venture outside the UAE and the first Islamic bank in Kazakhstan.
An agreement was signed in Abu Dhabi by a Kazakh-stan delegation led by Ruslan Dalinov, Deputy Minister of Kazakhstan's Ministry of Finance, and Ahmad Ateeq Al Mazrouei, chairman of Al Hilal Bank.
The agreement marks Al Hilal Bank's first international expansion initiative. Al Hilal bank will be responsible for setting up and managing the operations of the new bank, focusing on corporate and personal banking and offering Islamic finance solutions for small and medium enterprises.

Al Mazrouei said: "We are honoured to be invited by the Government of Kazakhstan to establish the first Islamic bank in the country while building on the excellent relationship between the two governments. Our unique business model is based on customer centricity - it proved successful in the UAE and we are aiming to leverage it in [the] Kazakh market and are confident that this move will further pave the way for the development of the country's Islamic financial sector."
Launched in June 2008, Al Hilal Bank offers Sharia-compliant banking solutions and has been a major player in a number of strategic partnerships.
With a population of close to 16 million, Kazakhstan possesses enormous fossil fuel reserves and plentiful supplies of other minerals and metals. It also has a large agricultural sector featuring livestock and grain.
Kazakhstan's industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these natural resources.