Maalexi, a UAE-based B2B food and agriculture platform, has secured a Shariah-compliant credit facility of up to $20 million from Amwal Capital Partners (ACP) to expand its operations and strengthen regional food security.

The agreement begins with an initial $5 million tranche and will support Maalexi’s plans to scale its technology-driven platform, enabling thousands of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to participate in cross-border food and agri-trade.

Dr. Azam Pasha, CEO of Maalexi, said that the financing will accelerate the deployment of AI, IoT, and blockchain technologies to improve risk intelligence, trackability, and secure documentation in food trade.

The fully tech-enabled structure is collateralised against Maalexi’s inventory and receivables in UAE warehouses and designed to monitor daily risk positions in real time while facilitating swift, small-ticket transactions. Expansion into origin-market procurement is also planned through partnerships with farmer producer organisations and cooperatives.

The UAE imports nearly $24 billion worth of food annually, with 80% re-exported to meet regional demand. Maalexi aims to make SMEs a stronger part of this supply chain by reducing risks related to quality, price, counterparty reliability, and payments, while also investing further in advanced datasets and tokenisation for real-time settlement.

Indonesians traveling to Japan can now make payments using the Quick Response Indonesian Standard (QRIS), after Bank Indonesia officially launched the cross-border digital payment system in Osaka on August 17, 2025.

“This is a historic moment. It marks a new chapter in closer cooperation between Indonesia and Japan through digital technology. Today, the QRIS cross-border system between Indonesia and Japan begins,” said Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo at the launch ceremony in Jakarta, which was livestreamed to Osaka.

The rollout makes Japan the first country outside ASEAN to adopt QRIS. The system is expected to simplify transactions for more than 500,000 Indonesian tourists visiting Japan annually, as well as for Japanese travelers to Indonesia.

The Osaka launch was marked by Bank Indonesia deputy governor Filianingsih Hendarta purchasing apparel from Indonesian MSMEs at the Indonesian Pavilion using QRIS, in the presence of Japanese officials and guests. 

Bank Indonesia said the initiative aims to strengthen economic ties and promote seamless cross-border payments between the two countries, with future plans to expand QRIS adoption further.

According to the World Food Program, food security is achieved when people have reliable access to sufficient, nutritious food. That might seem simple enough, but for decades, food security has meant emergency grain shipments in the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Today, with climate shocks, volatile markets, and rising populations, it has become an even more pressing issue, making urgent investment essential.

The Global Food Security Index 2022 ranks most OIC states as "weak" or "very weak." While countries such as Bahrain, the UAE, and Uzbekistan are outliers with their progress, conditions have deteriorated at the other end in countries such as Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen between 2020 and 2022.

The FAO classifies 26 OIC countries as low-income food deficit states, and 22 require external assistance. Between 2020 and 2022, an average of 45% of the OIC's population faced moderate or severe food insecurity, with nearly half of the world's food crises occurring in OIC states.

Fragile systems on the brink of collapse
According to SESRIC's 2023 report, agriculture still provides livelihoods for millions and contributes more than 25% of GDP in 11 OIC member countries. But the region remains a net importer. In 2021, imports reached $292.9 billion, far outpacing exports at $188 billion, even as intra-OIC trade grew 85%.

The four pillars of food security reveal how exposed the region is. Domestic production has declined in many places, leaving states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan importing more than 90% of their cereals. Access to food is deeply uneven: food is affordable in the Gulf, but in sub-Saharan Africa, households spend more than their GDP-equivalent income on food, leaving them reliant on aid. 

Malnutrition is entrenched, with nearly one in five children stunted, especially in Niger and Libya, where poor sanitation compounds the crisis. Stability is the weakest pillar: wars, droughts, floods, pandemics, and market shocks repeatedly push communities to the brink. In 2022, 172,000 people in OIC states were classified as facing famine, with millions more in emergency hunger.

Financing gaps in the agriculture chain
Agriculture in OIC countries remains severely underfinanced, receiving less than 5% of total credit. Only about 39% of farmers have access to finance or insurance, leaving smallholders vulnerable to shocks.

Some relief has come from multilateral financing. The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has committed $8 billion through its Food Security Response Program, while its trade finance arm, ITFC, channelled $1.75 billion into food and agriculture in 2024. But more is needed.

Sporadic investment responses
Before examining each country's investments, it's important to acknowledge that food security is a complex and vast area that translates to different areas of concern depending on each country's topography and specific requirements.

With financing channels under strain, OIC governments and institutions are turning to targeted investments across key sectors:

Water and land: The UAE's Bustanica vertical farm — a $40 million Emirates Crop One venture — now supplies Emirates Airlines, while a joint venture between Plenty Unlimited Inc., a U.S.–based indoor vertical farming startup, and Mawarid Holding Investment, a subsidiary of Alpha Dhabi Holding in the UAE, is to build five indoor farms across the GCC. Morocco's OCP Group has committed $13 billion (2023–27) to expand fertilizer capacity and develop green ammonia, backed by a €350 million AFD loan.

Agro-inputs and fertilizer: Morocco's OCP is ramping up exports across Africa, while Nigeria's Dangote Fertiliser plant, with a capacity of 3 million tonnes a year, has become a key supplier. Bangladesh's 2025/26 ITFC plan allocates $2.75 billion for petroleum and fertilizers.

Poultry and livestock: Qatar's 2024–30 Food Security Strategy focuses on poultry and dairy, while Egypt, with support from ITFC and the World Bank, is expanding feed and milling capacity.

Grain and logistics: Wheat imports remain unavoidable. Saudi Arabia's SALIC bought an 80% stake in Olam Agri for $1.78 billion in 2025, securing access to origination in Asia and Africa. The UAE's ADQ owns 45% of Louis Dreyfus Company, while Egypt has shifted to private wheat contracts, supported by $1.3 billion in ITFC financing.

Technology and insurance: The Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC) issued $1.12 billion in guarantees for food-related trade between 2022 and 2024. The OIC's dedicated agency, IOFS, has proposed a $1 billion Grain Fund to pool reserves and invest in climate-resilient crops.

Progress is beset by gaps
Progress is tangible. But gaps remain. Tariffs and weak logistics hamper intra-OIC food trade. Efficient logistics and transport infrastructure are vital for lowering trade costs and ensuring predictable food imports. While OIC trading hubs benefit from advanced systems, many smaller economies face high costs due to weak networks.

Investing in transport corridors, alongside supportive trade agreements, could reduce costs, boost trade flows, and strengthen food security. Between now and 2027, several milestones will test these strategies: the SALIC–Olam Agri integration, OCP's green ammonia rollout, and the launch of the IOFS Grain Fund.

There’s a familiar playbook in tech: go big, open the gates, capture as many users as possible. And if growth stalls? Open wider.

But not everyone plays by that rule.

In 2014, OnePlus launched its first smartphone to the public, with a catch. You couldn’t buy one unless you were invited. It wasn’t a gimmick. It was a signal. If you were in, you were early. 

The result? 1.5 million people signed up for a chance to join. 

The invite wasn’t a barrier as some may think. The invite worked as a bond.

From social platforms to investment collectives, we’re seeing a quiet resurgence of this model. Not because exclusivity is trendy, but because intentionality builds stronger communities than scale ever will.

What open systems often overlook
Openness sounds noble and feels democratic. But the most ‘open’ systems often suffer from a distinct problem: disconnection.

We’ve seen this in online communities where bots outnumber humans; on platforms where every new face feels like just another name. In financial cooperatives, the few carry the weight of many. When anyone can enter, no one feels responsible.

Economist Christian Hilber wrote in 2007 about the ‘free rider problem’ when individual participation often swings inversely to group size. As the group swells, sole participation begins to dwindle.

In community finance, the drop isn’t theoretical rather practical. It’s the difference between people who show up and those who don’t.

Access coupled with purpose
An invitation changes everything.

It suggests that someone thought of you. Trusted you to contribute. It creates a sense of belongingness that no marketing campaign can replicate.

Muslim mutual aid groups have practiced this for generations. In West Africa, rotating savings circles known as tontines bring together trusted individuals who pool funds and take turns accessing the money. 

In Southeast Asia, ‘gotong-royong’ is a cultural practice of mutual help, where communities mobilize to support each other through labour, resources, and time through a tangible sense of solidarity. 

The value is in who is sharing, and why.

Even in digital spaces, we’re learning that healthy communities scale intentionally. Early decentralized autonomous organizations ( DAOs), recognized this. 

Built on blockchain, DAOs are member-governed groups that operate without centralized leadership.

They rely on collective voting and transparent rules written into code, analogous to legacy cooperatives, invite-only forums, and curated Telegram groups where one introduction eclipsed 10,000 cold followers.

A silent shift in our circle
When we launched The LifeDAO, our doors were open. We welcomed anyone aligned with our values of mutual care and ethical finance. 

Then something unexpected happened: 500+ early members didn't just join for the sake of joining. They stayed, contributed and helped shape a financial safety net for one another.

This prompted us to question: "How do we protect what makes this special?" 

So, yes, we have begun transitioning into a gated model. Quietly and carefully. Because this was never meant to be another product. It was always a circle, one that holds better when you know who’s inside it.

Referrals matter, as do in-person events, waitlists, and whispers passed between people who get it.

We’re not the first to do this, and we won’t be the last. But as someone who’s spent years building community-based finance systems, I believe this: open access might get you numbers, but trust is what makes them count.

Quality over quantity 
Being selective doesn’t mean being elitist. It means caring enough to curate. Building systems where people don’t just sign up, they show up, especially when it matters.

And for those watching this shift and wondering if the circle will ever widen again, I’ll say this: the best communities are built by those who enter with purpose, not pressure.

So, if you receive an invitation in your inbox or a DM asking, “Hey, have you heard of this?”, don’t ignore.

It might just be your chance to step through the door.

Sharene Lee is the chief operating officer & co-founder at Takadao

Oman posted a fiscal deficit for the first six months of the year, as lower oil prices squeezed revenues for the GCC’s smallest economy and expenditures rose.  

The sultanate swung into deficit of $672 million (259 million Omani riyals) at the end of the second quarter, from a surplus of $1 billion (391 million Omani riyals) recorded from a year-earlier period. 

Revenues for the six months to the end of June fell 5.7% on an annual basis to $15.17 billion (5.8 billion Omani riyals), in large part due to a fall in hydrocarbon revenue, the Omani finance ministry said in its quarter bulletin. 

Net oil revenue dipped 10% to $7.8 billion at the end of Q2 2025, while net gas revenue slumped 6% to $2.3 billion. 

Average realized oil prices stood at $75 a barrel at the end of the year’s second quarter, down 8.5% from $82 per barrel from a year-earlier period. 

The sultanate’s expenditures climbed 5% year-on-year to reach $15.83 billion as the government stepped up development expenditure of ministries and government units. 

Subsidy allocations included $880 million to the electricity sector, $750 million to the social protection system, and $114 million for oil products. Public debt stood at $36.6 billion at the end of Q2 2025. 

The International Monetary Fund has projected Oman’s economy to grow at 2.4% this year and 3.7% in 2026. 

“This expected performance is driven by the phase-out of OPEC+ curbs and strong nonhydrocarbon growth, underpinned by ongoing investments in logistics, manufacturing, renewable energy, and tourism, but held back by the potential slowdown in key trading partners’ growth,” the IMF said after concluding a staff visit to Oman in May. 

The sultanate, which is the largest non-OPEC oil and natural gas producer in the Middle East, is part of the broader OPEC+ alliance. 

Inflation remains low, edging up from 0.6% in 2024 to 0.9% year-over-year during January-April 2025, the fund added. 

Oman is looking to diversify its sources of income away from oil and will impose a 5% levy on taxable income for individuals earning over $109,091 annually (42,000 Omani riyals), starting 2028.

The move supports the country's 2040 Vision under which it aims to achieve 15% of its gross domestic product from non-oil sources by 2030 and 18% by 2040. 

Saudi Arabia’s National Debt Management Center (NDMC) raised 5.31 billion Saudi riyals ($1.42 billion) through its August sukuk issuance, marking a 5.8% increase from July and the Kingdom’s largest offering in three months.

The NDMC said the latest issuance underlines ongoing efforts to diversify funding sources and strengthen the domestic debt market. The riyal-denominated sukuk was issued in four tranches: 755 million Saudi riyals maturing in 2029, 465 million in 2032, 1.12 billion in 2036, and 2.97 billion Saudi riyals in 2039.

Sukuk, Shariah-compliant instruments that grant investors partial ownership of underlying assets, continue to attract strong demand from regional and international investors seeking alternatives to conventional bonds.

The Kingdom’s sukuk program has seen steady momentum this year, with 5.02 billion Saudi riyals raised in July, 2.35 billion in June, and 4.08 billion in May. A recent report by Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) showed Saudi Arabia led the Gulf’s debt market in the first half of 2025, accounting for 52% of the GCC total by raising $47.9 billion through 71 bond and sukuk deals.

Global ratings agency S&P has also underscored Saudi Arabia’s central role in Islamic finance, forecasting global sukuk issuance to reach between $190 billion and $200 billion in 2025, with as much as $80 billion expected in foreign currency offerings.

Malaysia's Zetrix AI Bhd has unveiled a Shariah-aligned large language model to offer Shariah-compliant guidance and support across several domains, including finance, law, healthcare, education, and daily lifestyle. 

The NurAI platform aims to provide culturally relevant, faith-compliant assistance for Muslim-majority markets, starting with Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei, which has a combined population of 340 million. The service is available in Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic, and English.

The model is built on China’s open-source DeepSeek model with technical input from Chinese researchers under the ASEAN–China AI Lab initiative.

“This is a prime example of how we can harmonise religion and technology for the benefit of the ummah and the advancement of the nation,” deputy premier Dr Ahmed Zahid Hamidi said at the launch.

NurAI will offer AI Avatar channels which will simulate interactions with Islamic scholars and subject experts. These avatars, trained on exclusive datasets, will provide personalised advice on topics ranging from inheritance law and Islamic finance to medical bioethics.

Zetrix AI has partnered with institutions including INCEIF University, an affiliate of Bank Negara Malaysia, to ensure financial services channels meet scholarly standards.

The system is guided by a formal Shariah Supervisory Board and works with religious bodies such as JAKIM in Malaysia, the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI), the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, and Egypt’s Al-Azhar University.

Future updates will expand coverage across different religious schools of thought.

Fadzli Shah, co-founder and head of AI development at Zetrix AI, said the project addresses a critical gap in global AI development.

“Current models are shaped by Western and Chinese contexts. With two billion Muslims and a $3 trillion Islamic economy, there is clear demand for AI tools aligned with Islamic perspectives and Global South priorities."

NurAI is rolling out as a freemium consumer app during its launch phase, with premium tools such as inheritance calculators to follow.

In its second phase, Zetrix AI plans to integrate the platform into financial institutions, halal certification bodies, and government agencies.