JEDDAH, 31 March 2005 — The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has made “tremendous progress” in the last 30 years. It has increased its modes of financing from three to about a dozen, the authorized capital has gone up from $2.66 billion to $22.43 billion presently, and gross approvals have exceeded $40 billion for more than 5,000 projects and operations. The yearly operations have increased from about $1 billion to nearly $4 billion now.
“From a modest beginning in 1975 with 22 founding members, the bank has grown with leaps and bounds. The membership has increased to 55,” bank President Dr. Ahmed Muhammad Ali said during the 30th anniversary celebrations on Sunday.
The president said the challenges were not over. All of the bank’s members are developing countries, and about 23 of them are LDMCs - least developed member countries. “The bank has been giving special attention to LDMCs fulfilling the principles of founding members of the bank,” he said, and added, “IDB activities also cover Muslim communities in non-member countries, of which there are more than 60.” IDB has also been supporting the Islamic banking industry and has contributed to many Islamic banks in various ways.
The Bank prepares OIC member states for membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and ministerial meetings for meaningful participation in the Multilateral Trading System.