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RIYADH: The global market for environmental, social and governance sukuk reached a record $6.5 billion in the third quarter, bringing total issuance this year to $13.5 billion, Fitch Ratings said. 

The surge has already set a new full-year record for 2025, underscoring the growing investor appetite for sustainable Islamic finance instruments, according to the US-based agency.

ESG sukuk accounted for more than 40 percent of all emerging market US-dollar ESG bond issuance excluding China in the first nine months of 2025, up sharply from 18 percent during the same period last year, the report showed. 

This rise comes amid a broader push by governments and financial regulators in the Gulf, Southeast Asia, and other emerging markets to develop sustainable finance frameworks. 

The global sukuk market topped $1 trillion in 2024, with ESG sukuk exceeding $50 billion, underscoring sustainability’s growing role in Islamic finance, according to a joint report from the London Stock Exchange Group and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, a member of the Islamic Development Bank. 

Bashar Al-Natoor, Fitch’s global head of Islamic Finance, said: “We expect ESG sukuk issuance to maintain strong momentum into 2026, fueled by robust demand, regulatory support, and sustainability mandates.” 

He added: “Risks such as oil price volatility, greenwashing and evolving sharia requirements persist, but fundamentals remain solid.” 

The market’s expansion is also growing more sophisticated, marked by a rise in subordinated ESG sukuk. 

These neared $5 billion in issuance by the third quarter of 2025, all from Saudi issuers, raising their share of Fitch-rated dollar ESG sukuk to 5 percent in the third quarter from just 1 percent in the first half. 

Outstanding ESG sukuk across all currencies reached over $55 billion at the end of September, making up around 40 percent of all ESG debt in member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. 

Fitch reported that approximately 95 percent of its rated portfolio is investment grade. All issuers carry a Stable Outlook, and no rated ESG sukuk has ever defaulted, underscoring the asset class’s resilience. 

Geographically, issuance remains concentrated in key Islamic finance hubs. Gulf Cooperation Council countries hold over half of all outstanding ESG sukuk, while Malaysia and Indonesia together contribute more than 40 percent.

RIYADH: The high-profile speakers and guests set to attend the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh next week will include heads of state Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the president of Syria; Han Zheng, the vice president of China; Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan; Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda; and Edi Rama, the prime minister of Albania.

Their names and other details of the program the event’s ninth edition were announced on Monday by Richard Attias, chairperson of the FII Institute Executive Committee, who predicted this year’s conference would feature “many deals” across several key sectors.

“I definitely think energy, definitely big infrastructure, definitely big,” he said. “So all these sectors will be very highly represented.

“My instinct is that we will exceed 2024, I’m sure of it too,” he added, referring to last year’s event, during which deals worth more than $70 billion were signed.

The FII Institute will also launch a new ventures program aimed at accelerating the growth and success of impact-driven startups that aim to create positive social or environmental change as a core part of their business models, Attias said.

“We selected more than 750 companies, startup tech companies, many of them in the AI sectors,” he explained.

“We will help them to accelerate their growth, to be recognized and to have an impact by stimulating economies, creating jobs … and growing and to become new champions,” Attias added.

Highlighting the institute’s investment record, he said: “We invested more than $6 million in the past few years to help some companies to grow. And as you can see, more than $87 million has been raised by private portfolio companies as additional funding.

“So because we are supporting some startups, other investors are coming with us to support these startups, and these six companies that we invested in … they created more than 2,000 jobs.”

In addition to the heads of state who will attend, the global business and investment leaders participating this year include the director of the Bretton Woods Committee, Laura Cha; the president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, Ruth Porat; the founder of Schmidt Family Foundation and Schmidt Sciences, Eric Schmidt; the CEO of Citi, Jane Fraser; the founder of Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio; and the co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc, Evan Spiegel.

Other high-profile attendees include the Saudi minister of energy, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman; the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Yasir Al-Rumayyan; the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves; the founder of Grameen Bank, Mohammed Yunus; Russia’s special presidential envoy, Kirill Dmitriev; the director general of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; and the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike.

Attias said the FII has made significant progress since its launch in 2017: “We are making, and we made, many announcements during FII during the past eight years.

“Almost $200 billion (of agreements) were signed. I’m not talking about MoUs (memorandums of understanding), I’m talking about real contracts which (were) signed, having an impact on so many sectors: logistics, AI, clean energy, mobility finance.

“The question is, how much we will expect in 2025? I don’t know but I will just remind you of something; last year at the same time, I was expecting … $20-$25 billion to be signed. We ended with more than $60 billion, so let’s hope for beating the record of last year.”

Attias also highlighted the unprecedented international participation expected at this year’s conference.

“We have, for the first time, more than 20 heads of state,” he said. “Never happened before. The maximum we had was three heads of state … This list is not even final, because every day we’re getting more and more heads of state.”

It is anticipated that more than 8,000 delegates, 600 speakers and 56 strategic partners will take part in more than 250 sessions during the conference, Attias said, with particularly strong representation expected from the technology sector.

“FII was never the place for tech and AI companies,” he added. “Now it is becoming a place where all (tech) champions, from AI (to) the Googles, the Microsofts, the Nvidias are coming to.”

The ninth Future Investment Initiative conference will take place in Riyadh from Oct. 27-30.