EDB meets with IFSB Secretary-General at the 23rd IFSB General Assembly in Morocco
Rabat, Morocco, 3 July 2025. The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), represented by Nurym Ayazbayev, Executive Director, Islamic Finance, Directorate of Lending to Financial Institutions andMargulan Abdirov, Senior Executive Director and Deputy Head of the Project Division, met with Dr. Ghiath Shabsigh, Secretary-General of the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), during the 23rdIFSB General Assembly in Rabat, Morocco.
The two parties met to discuss the potential of developing Islamic Finance in Central Asia, and joint collaboration on institutional development, create standardized frameworks aligned with global Islamic finance standards to attract international investments.
This meeting was followed by Nurym Ayazbayev presentation of the capacity and future influence of spreading Islamic Finance services across EDB Member States in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, at the IFSB Annual General Assembly Meeting. A special emphasis was placed in the joint report on the “Future of Islamic Finance in Central Asia”, published by the EBD, the Institute of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).
“We continuously monitor and evaluate the best practices of our partners and neighbors in their means and ways of promoting Islamic Finance across the globe. Here, we also see the benefit of “gloсalizing” international experience to form our Islamic window for our region of operation. With our estimations that the Islamic Finance market is to grow up to $6.7 trillion by 2027, we want to place ourselves at the forefront of this, and contribute to regional development”, Mr Ayazbayev concluded.
This is the first time the EDB participates in the IFBS Annual Meeting as an Associate Member of the organization, following the Bank’s ascent into this status at the 45th Council Meeting hosted in Djibouti in December 2024.
Additional Information:
The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) is a multilateral development bank investing in Eurasia. For more than 19 years, the Bank has worked to strengthen and expand economic ties and foster comprehensive development in its member countries. By 2025, the EDB’s cumulative portfolio comprised 305 projects with a total investment of US $16.5 billion. Its portfolio consists principally of projects with an integration effect in transport infrastructure, digital systems, green energy, agriculture, manufacturing and mechanical engineering. The Bank adheres to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and ESG principles in its operations.
The EDB is implementing three mega-projects as part of its 2022–2026 Strategy: the Eurasian Transport Network, the Eurasian Agricultural Goods Distribution System and the Central Asian Water and Energy Complex.
The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), which is based in Kuala Lumpur, was officially inaugurated on 3 November 2002 and started operations on 10 March 2003. It serves as an international standard-setting body for regulatory and supervisory agencies that have a vested interest in ensuring the soundness and stability of the Islamic financial services industry, which is defined broadly to include banking, capital market and insurance. In advancing this mission, the IFSB promotes the development of a prudent and transparent Islamic financial services industry by introducing new or adapting existing international standards consistent with Sharî’ah principles and recommending them for adoption.
As of July 2024, the 188 members of the IFSB comprised 81 regulatory and supervisory authorities, 10 international inter-governmental organisations, and 97 market players (financial institutions, professional firms, industry associations and stock exchanges) operating in 58 jurisdictions.
Malaysia, the host country of the IFSB, has enacted a law known as the Islamic Financial Services Board Act 2002, which gives the IFSB the immunities and privileges that are usually granted to international organisations and diplomatic missions.
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