BEI president director Ito Warsito said he hoped the index could become a main indicator that reflects the entire performance of sharia shares listed in BEI.
Besides that, he said, he hoped it could also help correct public wrong perception so far that sharia shares only consist of 30 shares recorded in the Jakarta Islamic Center.
"Later the method of calculating the ISSI will be the same as that for other indexes in BEI using market capitalization weighted average," he said.
He said the components include all shares put in the Sharia Securities List (DES) issued by the Supervisory Board of Capital Market and Financial Institutions (Bapepam LK) once in six months.
"The basis date for ISSI is December 2008 with an index of 100. Right now there are 214 shares with market capitalization reaching 43.6 percent of total market capitalization in BEI," he said.
BEI on Thursday also issued Decree (Fatwa) Number 80 on Implementation of Sharia Principles in Equity Securities Trade Mechanism at the regular market of the Indonesia Stock Exchange legitimized by the National Sharia Council of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) on March 8, 2011.
Ito said the fatwa provides strong basis or legal foundation for the implementation of trade and that continuous auction used by BEI in equity securities transactions at the regular market is in conformity with sharia laws.
He said Fatwa Number 80 on Sharia Mechanism of Share Trading and ISSI is expected to make the public to no longer have any doubt to make sharia investment in the capital market to eventually increase the number of domestic investors in the Indonesia Capital Market.
He said the number of investors needed to be increased because of the huge potential of the industry in Indonesia.
Until now, he said. total investors in the capital market in Indonesia is still less than one percent of the total population.
"We must continue to increase the number of investors. Our potential is huge. In the future, we even hope Indonesia could become the center and at the same time ever the gauge for the world capital market industry. Right now we are still far below Malaysia. However with the existing potential we are convinced it could be materialized," he said.
The chief of the Executive Board of the National Sharia Council of the MUI, K.H Ma`ruf Amin, said the launching of the Sharia Index and Fatwa Number 80 confirmed that investing in the capital market is not a "gamble."
"Transactions in the share market is not a gamble as has been believed before. With ISSI investors would know which shares that have performed based on sharia laws," he said.
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Editor: Bambang
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
