Islamic financing for infrastructure projects and its implementation barriers

Abstract

Research on Islamic project financing in infrastructure conducted predominantly in Islamic countries and developed countries showed its many benefits. This particular research focuses on Indonesia. As a developing country with a majority of Muslim population, it is reasonable to expect that Islamic project financing may also be a suitable option for financing alternatives in Indonesian infrastructure development. This paper aims to identify the barriers to implementing Islamic financing for infrastructure project development. A Delphi study was conducted to gather the views and opinions of an expert panel. The study found that the main barriers to implementing Islamic project financing are a lack of understanding of the Islamic project financing concept, a resistance to using Islamic finance, and investors’ behavior and characteristics, such as a profit-oriented mind-set and risk avoidance, which might affect the infrastructure stakeholders’ preference for using a sharia-compliant scheme.