As European banks have pulled back from overseas exposures to concentrate on cleansing their balance sheets and strengthening their core businesses, Middle Eastern and Asian borrowers have turned to local investors and alternative forms of financing, analysts say, with issues of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, notably on the rise.
In the first three months of 2012, $6 billion of sukuk were sold in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, approaching the total of $7.3 billion issued in the whole of 2011, according to data from the Dubai bank Emirates NBD………………………………………..Full Article: Source