Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group and the Saudi Ministry of Housing signed on 29 May 2017 an MoU on the establishment of an endowment fund (Waqf Fund) to support housing for social security and low-income beneficiaries, and work with the non-profit sector to provide adequate housing for the needy families.

The memorandum was signed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Housing Minister HE Majid bin Abdullah Al-Huqail and Dr. Bandar Hajjar, President of IsDB Group.
According to the memorandum, the two parties agreed to support the areas of cooperation namely investment in endowment resources in the field of housing for Social Security and low income beneficiaries according to vision and objectives of the both parties, develop investment plans to achieve the highest profitable return on the resources being mobilized, exchange of information on investment of endowment resources for the purpose of affordable housing. The parties also agreed to study the idea
of establishing a Waqf fund to invest in the field of affordable housing in the Kingdom.

In order to implement these objectives, the two parties agreed to form a special committee concerned with the proper implementation of the objective of the Memorandum and areas of cooperation within the limits of the rules, regulations and procedures of each party.

The MoU between IsDB and Ministry of Housing was the culmination of an active cooperation between the two sides starting the visit of the President of the Bank to the Ministry of Housing on January 29th, 2017 in the context of IsDB’s support for Saudi 2030 Vision and the National Transition Program 2020.