OREANDA-NEWS. June 17, 2009. The Governments of Kazakhstan and the UAE have signed an agreement to launch Al Hilal Bank in Kazakhstan, reported the Official website government.kz.

The Bank will be carrying out financial operations in the realms of industrial production, agriculture, real estate and tourism. The UAE side has pledged to send experts on Islamic banking to provide training to local specialists. The bank’s authorized capital will make up over 100 million dirhams; two branches will be launched in Astana and Almaty.

“Primarily, this bank will be representing interests of Abu Dhabi and will ensure attraction of Arabic investments into our economy”, Kazakhstan’s Finance Minister Bolat Zhamishev said.

“In our banking legislation there is a requirement that to start operations in Kazakhstan, any foreign bank should have certain international ratings. Al Hilal Bank was established in 2007 and started its operations in 2008; to accelerate inflow of investments, a decision was taken to sign an intergovernmental agreement to launch a branch in Kazakhstan and submit this agreement for ratification so that to exempt it from the ratings-related requirements”, Zhamishev said, adding that the branch would start operations in Kazakhstan this year.

Al Hilal Bank, fully owned bank of Abu Dhabi Investment Council, was established in 2007 by a respective decree of His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The bank’s long-term strategy envisages launching branches in countries with predominantly Muslim population to provide a wide range of banking services in line with the Sharia.