“We should all consider the needs and developments in world economy while determining methods and instruments used in economic cooperation, Gul said in his message to the opening session of the Follow-Up Committee of the Standing Committee for Economic & Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), being held in Istanbul.
Strong efforts should be made to implement the projects that are on COMCEC’s agenda, he said.
“COMCEC, which aims to boost economic and commercial cooperation among Islamic countries, should not remain indifferent to those developments and should improve cooperation in this framework,” said Gul. “Trade volume among member countries increased to 16.3 percent in 2006. We should exert a significant effort to improve trade in areas apart from oil and agriculture products.”
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of the OIC warned that the looming global food crisis threatened many Muslim countries as some of them were below poverty threshold and were suffering extreme economic problems.
“However, Muslim countries have the potential to overcome this crisis,” said Ihsanoglu.
