KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 — The Islamic Capital Market (ICM), demonstrating steady growth, expanded by 4.5 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) from RM2.32 trillion in 2022 to RM2.43 trillion as of the end of 2023.

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) in its Annual Report 2023 released today said the ICM maintained a substantial contribution accounting for 63.73 per cent of the overall capital market.

This comprises Shariah-compliant securities with total market capitalisation of RM1.16 trillion, and sukuk with total amount outstanding of RM1.27 trillion.

It said as of end-2023, the number of Shariah-compliant securities increased from 789 to 811, constituting 81.51 per cent of the total 995 listed securities on Bursa Malaysia.

"The market capitalisation of Shariah-compliant securities registered an increase of 3.25 per cent as compared to end-2022, standing at RM1.16 trillion or 64.32 per cent of the total market capitalisation by December 2023,” it shared.

In the sukuk market, the SC said corporate sukuk issuances represented 77.25 per cent (2022: 81.66 per cent) of total corporate bonds and sukuk issuances while corporate sukuk outstanding accounted for 83.96 per cent (2022: 82.82 per cent) of total corporate bonds and sukuk outstanding.

The total sukuk issuances in 2023 represented 60.84 per cent (2022: 68.23 per cent) of total bonds and sukuk issuances whereas the total sukuk outstanding represented 63.20 per cent (2022: 63.27 per cent) of total bonds and sukuk, the report said.

The SC also noted that a total of 15 issuers issued sustainable and responsible investing (SRI) sukuk in 2023, bringing the total SRI sukuk issuers to 34 since 2015.

"Corporate SRI sukuk issuances in 2023 amounted to RM8.68 billion, which was 9.50 per cent of total corporate sukuk issuances, while corporate SRI sukuk outstanding increased to RM26.32 billion as of December 2023 (2022: RM17.93 billion), constituting 3.75 per cent of the total corporate sukuk outstanding,” it said.

As for Islamic fund management, the SC said as of December 2023, Islamic assets under management (AUM) stood at RM226.14 billion, a y-o-y increase of 9.85 per cent from RM205.86 billion as of end-2022.

The total number of Islamic collective investment scheme such as unit trust fund, wholesale funds, private retirement scheme (PRS), real estate investment trust (REIT) and exchange traded fund (ETF) amounted to 415 as of December 2023, which includes 28 Islamic SRI funds, it said.

"Additionally, there were a total of 59 fund management companies overseeing Islamic funds, comprising 24 full-fledged Islamic fund management companies and 35 conventional fund management companies with Islamic windows as of December 2023,” the SC added. — Bernama