DOHA, Dec 19 (KUNA) -- Governor of Qatar Central Bank (QCB) Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud Al-Thani said Monday Islamic banks' role was growing thus attracting regional and international attention.

Sheikh Abdullah, addressing the 8th International Conference on Islamic Economics and Finance (ICIEF), said QCB realized that the combination between traditional and Islamic banking activities could undermine the free and transparent competition between banks He expressed confidence in the banking role of the local islamic banks.

Combining beween activities of traditional banks and their respective Islamic branches face lots of challenges and make the superivision and control process more complicated in addition to further blocking the optimal use of the monetary policy mechanism.

Sheikh Abdullah said he was confident Islamic banks would face challenges of achieving development economically.

He listed two of the major challenges facing Islamic banks. The first is developing the legal infrastructure for their transactions, and the second is developing their products to meet its supervision requirements.

Director General of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Dr. Ahmad Mohammad Ali called on Islamic banks to seek new ideas to providing lequidity to finance projects of the youth.

He said the Islamic banks could play a leading role to addressing unemployment namely in rural areas.