OIC states urged to raise intra-trade by 20 percent

The President of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB) Ahmad Mohamed Ali has called on IDB member countries to raise the targeted volume of trade between its member countries to 20 percent by the year 2015, as recommended during the Islamic Summit held in Makkah in 2005.
The IDB chief made this statement while speaking at the opening session of the 29th Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) in Istanbul, Turkey, in the presence of Turkish President Abdullah Gül, who is current chairman of COMCEC.
Ali urged the COMCEC and the Coordination Group “to seek ways and means to realize the desired increase in the intra-trade volume before the next Islamic Summit in Turkey in 2016. He also recalled the Aid for Trade Initiative for Arab States, which was launched by the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), the trade arm of IDB, stating that the Initiative could be a major tool in increasing intra-trade.
Turning to the financing performance of some the IDB Group affiliates, he said that the total trade financing of ITFC for the year 1434H has topped $5 billion, double the average level of operations in the last five years. He also said that the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment & Export Credit (ICIEC) has provided insurance facilities of more than $3 billion for export credit last year.
On the sidelines of the meeting, a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by the Republic of Niger, the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation and IDB, to cooperate under the Alliance to Fight Avoidable Blindness and establish the first Ophthalmic Center in Niger spending $2 million. The IDB will provide some medical equipment for the center. The MoU was signed by Niger Ambassador to Turkey, Abdullahi Muradi; Turkish Relief Foundation President, Fahmi Boluent Yaldriem; and IDB President Ali.
The COMCEC opening session was attended, among other dignitaries, by Cevdet Yilmaz, minister of development in Turkey and Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).