KUALA
LUMPUR, October 1, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The
Organization of the Islamic Conference appealed Saturday, October 1,
to Muslim countries and business leaders to help establish an Islamic
Free Trade Area (FTA) to overcome obstacles hindering trade and
investment between member states.
"The
current world conjecture is marked by the increasing emergence of
regional groupings where isolated countries cannot survive," OIC
Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told the opening of the World
Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF), reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"We
therefore should pool our resources together and undertake common,
global and sensible action to handle efficiently our economic
situations and set up our economic infrastructures in a bid to
alleviate poverty," he added in a speech read on his behalf by
Allal Rachdi, the director-general of Islamic Center for Development
of Trade.
Ihsanoglu
said the envisaged FTA would "enable us to overcome the obstacles
and bottlenecks that hinder the development of trade and investment
between our countries".
More
than 500 government officials and business leaders from 44 countries
are attending the three-day WIFE to discuss greater economic and
business cooperation.
The
forum is co-organized by Malaysia's Foreign Affairs Ministry,
Pakistan's Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Morocco's Islamic
Center for Development and Trade and the Asian Strategy and Leadership
Institute, a Malaysian think-tank.
Modest
Ihsanoglu
highlighted an increase in the share of intra-OIC trade in overall
trade from 10 percent in 2000 to 13.5 percent in 2003, reported
Bernama news agency.
"In
spite of this slight increase, the share of Intra-OIC trade remains
low, considering the abundant and natural resources and wealth of the
Islamic world, such as energy, agriculture and industrial
products," he maintained.
The
OIC chief said "tariff, non-tariff and administrative obstacles
and lack of communication and transport means and inappropriate
financing schemes" were hindering the expansion of trade and
investment.
He
praised the Framework Agreement on Trade Preferences, to be inked by
several Muslim countries in November, as a milestone that would pave
way for the establishment of the Islamic Common Market.
"This
stage remains a very modest progress that has been made to meet our
aspirations in the field of Intra-OIC trade," Ihsanoglu said.
He
urged the private sectors of OIC member states to act as the main
driving force for strengthening trade and business relationships
between Islamic countries.
"I
am confident that the new team of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce
would enable it to perform its task in the most effective manner in
keeping with the Islamic Common Action, especially as it is highly
skilled and experienced in the economic and commercial field."
Economic
Roadmap
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Aziz
outlined a "roadmap" to make the most of the potential
of Muslim nations.
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Pakistani
Premier Shaukat Aziz said Muslim nations had so far failed to realize
their economic potential despite holding vast resources of 70 percent
of the world's hydrocarbons and exporting 40 percent of raw materials
globally.
"While
many Muslim nations have developed and prospered and their people
enjoy high standards of living, it is also a fact that nearly 24
percent of the world's Muslim population earns less than a dollar a
day and an average of 39 percent live below the poverty line," he
told the forum.
Aziz,
who is also Pakistan's finance minister, stressed that Muslim
countries need to translate their "tremendous potential"
into assets.
Outlining
a "roadmap" to make the most of the potential of Muslim
nations, he said countries' economies had to be restructured through
deregulation, liberalization and privatization to promote growth,
while ensuring good governance to attract investment.
"If
we don't have good governance and structural reform and transparency,
no country can leverage its potential. If we keep perpetuating a
government which is not reforming, which is not governing properly,
then we are really hurting them rather than helping them," Aziz
maintained.
He
also called for a strengthened role for the Islamic Development Bank,
the lending and investment arm of the OIC.
"The
bank and many other multilateral institutions in the world should
spend as much time in improving the governance and reforming a country
as they do in financing a project," said the Pakistani premier.
Other
components of his roadmap include greater unity and cooperation among
Muslim nations, better social services such as health and education,
more resources for education, and a more prominent role for the
57-nation OIC.
Aziz
said negative perceptions of Islam, including attempts to associate it
with terrorism, were the biggest problem facing Muslims, and that it
could only be overcome by better economic progress.
"Our
image is being shaped by the extreme actions of a tiny minority of
extremists who exist on the fringes of Muslims societies," he
said.
"We
can only negate this image and prevent people from behaving
irrationally by leveraging our potential and improving their standard
of living."
