FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Middle East Global Advisors (MEGA)

12 December 2005

REAL TIME FINDINGS ENCOMPASSED WITHIN SUMMATION & RECOMMENDATIONS

The 12th Annual World Islamic Banking Conference (WIBC) - held under the official patronage of HH Shaikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain - concluded today with a high-powered and interactive ‘PowerTable’ debate, which centred on new developments, challenges, risks and benefits of Islamic Banking. A record-breaking number of delegates - more than 700 from more than 30 countries - attended WIBC 2005.

According to David McLean, Executive Director, The World Islamic Banking Conference, the collaboratively-charged nature of the PowerTable took dialogue between the audience and panel of leading international and regional specialists to a level never-before-seen in the event’s 12-year history.

"The use for the first time of polling technology facilitated the unprecedented level of interactivity between the audience and the PowerTable panel. In addition to answering questions posed by the audience the added use of the polling technology served to collate and analyze live delegate inputs in real time and this has exposed key issues from the session, which form part of the WIBC Summation and Recommendations."

Audience feedback to questions posed during the PowerTable essentially provide a snapshot of the issues, priorities and effectiveness of the Islamic banking industry and a resultant action list for the year ahead will be tabled for review at the World Islamic Banking Conference 2006.

Five key issues that were analyzed in terms of importance and the need to improve current performance are ranked below in descending order of priority:

1 Customer Service

2 Talent and Performance Management

3 Product range

4 International expansion, mergers and acquisitions

5 Risk Management and Basel II compliance

The PowerTable panelists included policy makers, academics, scholars, business leaders and financial experts. They were Khalid A. Al Bassam, Chairman, Bahrain Islamic Bank; Khalid Abdulla Janahi, Group Chief Executive, Dar Al-Maal Al-Islami Trust; Mohamad Toufic Kanafani, Chief Executive Officer, Noriba; Samuel L. Hayes III, Jacob Schiff Professor of Investment Banking – Emeritus, Harvard Business School; Abdulhakeem Yaqoob Alkhayyat, General Manager, Kuwait Finance House – Bahrain; Dr. Omar. Marwan Kamal, Partner In-charge, IFSG, Ernst & Young, Bahrain; and Abdulrazzak Mohammed Elkhraijy, Islamic Retail Banking Division Head, National Commercial Bank. Nima Abu-Wardeh, BBC Middle East Business Report Presenter, moderated the session.

This 12^th annual event has broken all past records in terms of numbers of Strategic Partners and had most leading industry players participating as partners, hosts, exhibitors or media partners & associates.

The Conference attracted media support from across the globe. The Official Media Partners were the Financial Times and Banker Middle East; the Broadcast Media Partner is CNBC Arabiya; the Online Information Partner is ABQ Zawya; and the Media Associates are Islamic Banking & Finance, IFIS, Khaleej Times, Eurekahedge, Forbes, Gulf Business, Arabies Trends, MEES, Islamic Business & Finance, Islamic Finance De, Islamic Finance News, Saneou Al Hadath, The Middle East in Europe, Middle East Monitor, Arab Banker, International Fund Investment, Finanza Araba and Moneyworks.

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