Morocco’s government has enacted a bill regulating Islamic banks and sukuk issues. Next will be a final vote later in the year by the parliament of the North African kingdom, reports Al-Arabiya.

If approved it will establish full-fledged Islamic banks in Morocco. This may result in more Gulf Arab investment into the country.

This process has been in the works for two years. “Last year, Moroccan deputies approved legislation allowing the government to issue sovereign sukuk, but it has not yet taken steps to raise its first Islamic bonds,” reports the website.

“We have adopted that law today and we are sending to the parliament,” communication minister and government spokesman Mustapha Khalfi told Reuters by telephone.

Already Morocco’s central bank has begun talks with a body of Islamic scholars on setting up a central sharia board to oversee the country’s growing Islamic finance industry, an official from Moroccan central bank told Reuters in April.