The government of the UK has announced plans to issue a sovereign sukuk of about $200m, as part of its attempts to capture some of the burgeoning Islamic Finance market and paint the London financial district as a hub for sharia-compliant finance.

A UK sovereign sukuk has been under consideration for years. “The government has taken the view that it wants to reinvigorate the Islamic finance sector in the UK and cast the City as the leading Western Islamic finance hub,” says Richard de Belder, a partner at law firm Dentons and a member of an Islamic task force set up by the UK government.