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By Santha Oorjitham
PUTRAJAYA, June 20 (Bernama) -- Iran
supports Malaysia's suggestion that the
Islamic Development Bank (IDB) should see
the economic imbalances between its 55
members as a challenge to help 22 of its
members classified as Least Developed
Countries.
The head of Iran's delegation to the 30th
annual meeting of the IDB Board of Governors
here, Dr Mohamed Nahavandian, was commenting
on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi's speech at the opening ceremony of
the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC)
Trade Forum, a side event of the meeting,
Monday.
"That's a very positive approach," he told
Bernama. "The Prime Minister was also
addressing the main point of utilising the
strength and capabilities of Islamic
economies as an economic union."
Nahavandian, who is also the general
director of the Tehran-based Islamic Chamber
Research & Information Centre (ICRIC), said
that although the OIC goal was to increase
the current rate of intra-OIC trade to 15
percent of global trade by the next decade,
there was potential to grow even more.
"Intra-trade in other economic unions could
go up to 50 percent," he said, noting that
70 percent of the European Union's trade was
among its members.
"Resource-wise and human resource-wise, the
Islamic community has a great potential for
prosperity, which can be enhanced through
intra-OIC trade and investment," he said.
"We have to have a body to set the agenda,
priorities and targets as well as ways and
means to gain the target numbers," he
stressed. "Without that, it is only talk."
The OIC summit in Tehran seven years ago had
decided to form an Islamic common market,
the head of delegation noted, adding that an
official body, such as a secretariat, should
be set up to make it a reality.
Through increasing intra-OIC trade,
Nahavandian said, the education sector could
also grow so that the focus would not only
be on economic development but human
development as well.
ICRIC is playing its part by informing IDB
members about each other's potential trade
and investment opportunities, he explained.
"We have done feasibility studies for
joint-ventures among Islamic countries," he
said.
ICRIC has also done studies on the online or
electronic way of doing business as a way to
lower transaction costs and bring markets
closer.
--BERNAMA
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