Jeddah, 3.10.2010: The Islamic Development Bank (“IDB”) has successfully updated its Sukuk Trust Certificate Issuance Program and increased the ceiling of the Program from US$ 1.5 billion to US$ 3.5 billion. This increase is to facilitate new issuance of Sukuk which will be used to finance a planned growth in the IDB’s operations. The Program obtained the highest rating of AAA, Aaa, and AAA respectively from Standard & Poors, Moody’s and Fitch. This rating is supported by the IDB’s Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) of ‘AAA’ with a Stable Outlook from the three major rating agencies. IDB intends to continue playing its pioneering and leadership role for the growth of Islamic capital markets. The philosophy of IDB core funding strategy rests on the principles of transparency, liquidity and superior performance. IDB aims to position itself as a leading supranational issuer in capital markets, with a well-defined, transparent and liquid Sukuk yield curve and offering investors across the world an investment opportunity of the highest credit quality. The IDB is a multilateral development bank (MDB) and is based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was established in 1975 with the aim of fostering economic development and social progress, and provides project and trade finance as well as technical assistance to its member countries. The bank operates in accordance with the principles of Islamic Law, and its financing instruments are mainly asset-backed. It employed 1,086 staff members as of end-December 2009.