At a time when industry specialists predict Islamic finance to continue growing at a rapid pace, the world’s third-largest economy, Japan, has been surprisingly slow to acknowledge the importance of its Islamic finance proposition. However recent amendments suggest that this may change. SYED SIDDIQ AHMED explores. Legal and regulatory: Japan has maintained a status quo in offering tax exemptions by extending them till March 2016. The tax exemption for interest on book-entry transfers of Islamic bonds expired in March 2013.....