The sources of collagens and gelatins are recently being questioned because it sourced from porcine or non-halal slaughtered animals. There are also concerns regarding the transfer of diseases from animal sources of collagen to human users. This study aims to propose an alternative source of collagen using recombinant collagen-like protein (halal-based) and to analyze factors contribute to the probability of using this alternative source of collagen among consumers in Malaysia.

Crowdfunding has become one of the preferred mechanisms to raise funds by startups and small entrepreneurs. As such, this paper aims to develop an appropriate framework for Shari'ah-compliant equity-based crowdfunding (SEC) for entrepreneurship development in Malaysia.

This paper aims to identify the best indicator in forecasting inflation in Malaysia. In methodology, the study constructs a simple forecasting model that incorporates the indicator/variable using the vector error correction (VECM) model of quasi-tradable inflation index and selected indicators: commodity prices, financial indicators and economic activities. For each indicator, the forecasting horizon used is 24 months and the VECM model is applied for seven sample windows over sample periods starting with the first month of 1980 and ending with the 12th month of every 2 years from 1992 to 2004. The degree of independence of each indicator from inflation is tested by analyzing the variance decomposition of each indicator and Granger causality between each indicator and inflation. We propose that a simple model using an aggregation of indices improves the accuracy of inflation forecasts. The results support our hypothesis.

Development of the global sukuk market has been pioneered by Malaysia with the launch of the first sovereign 5-year global sukuk of US$600 million in 2002. Since then, the sovereign sukuk market has developed rapidly, with sovereign sukuk being issued by the Governments of Turkey, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Indonesia to name a few. In view that sovereign securities are not totally free from default, there is also a great deal of concern associated with them as some of the issuing countries have experienced major debt servicing problems in the past such as the Greek debt crisis. As such, it is essential to analyze whether the sovereign sukuk yields do reflect the macroeconomic fundamentals of the issuing country. Based on the analysis of five countries in Asia and the Middle East, this study employs panel data from 2006 to 2013 and shows that only the inflation rate is able to explain the movement of sovereign sukuk yields. The insignificance of other macroeconomic variables such as GDP growth and money supply indicate that tagging the economic growth of the issuing country onto the pricing of sovereign sukuk yields may not be feasible at this juncture. Hence, it is concluded that in order to develop a standalone pricing mechanism different from the one used by the conventional bond market, more efforts are needed so that the sukuk market will expand with even more market player participation to create the liquidity needed for it to develop its own pricing mechanism.