Majid Pireh, Head of the Center for Research, Development and Islamic Studies of the securities and Exchange Organization and a member of the Education Committee of the Iranian Association of Islamic Finance, said currently we have a wide range of instruments in the stock market, some of which have financing functions that sukuk is the remarkable example of these instruments and some others have a hedging function, a clear example of which is the futures contract.

He went on to say that the first new issue that was raised in the Exchange Organization during the last year was the futures contract of the stock portfolio. The history of establishing these contracts dates back to seven years ago, but the development of futures contracts in the field of commodity futures has been significant. The Sharia Committee opposed to launch the index futures, stating that it could be delivered in futures contracts, so the stock portfolio was introduced as an alternative model to have some of the index futures functions.

Pireh stressed that another contract that has been examined in the past year is the stock portfolio trading option contract, which has been approved by the Sharia Committee.

Regarding the steps of approving an instrument in the Exchange Organization, he stated in the first stage, the initial plan will be compiled and in the second stage, the Sharia Committee will comment on this decision. If the Sharia Committee approves the plan, in the next step, the necessary instructions will be written then the secretariat of the Sharia Committee will correspond it with the enactment of the committee.

The enactment then goes to the High Council of the Exchange Organization. If the council approves it, then the Exchange Organization will comment on this, then the Board of Directors of the Securities and Exchange Organization will issue trading instructions, after that its accounting model and tax issues will be written, finally its circulars will be announced to implement.

Pireh added the third new issue that was raised in the Exchange Organization in the last year was the premium transactions. These transactions are for hedging, whereby the parties agree on a difference between a base oil or gas price. These transactions have been implemented.

He stressed that in the field of financing, the decision of the Sharia Committee on convertible sukuk or exchange with stocks was examined. Conversion means the sponsor's commitment at maturity becomes the sponsor's share and exchange means the sponsor's commitment at maturity is replaced by the share of another set. This issue regarding Ijarah bonds, Murabaha bonds and construction orders was approved by the Sharia Committee.

Pireh said another issue that is considered as an innovation in Exchange Organization is government Ijarah bonds. The first Ijarah bonds were issued in 2010, but the government did not use them until 2015, when the budget law allowed the government to use Ijarah sukuk to finance, which is why we saw the issuance of Ijarah sukuk in late March 2015.