LONDON, 25 September 2005 — Intra-Islamic trade, investment and development cooperation is set to receive a major boost at the inaugural World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) which will be held at the Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel in Petaling Jaya in Malaysia on Oct. 1-3.

The forum, under the theme “Forging New Alliances for Development and Progress” will be opened by Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, a keen proponent of greater economic, scientific and technological cooperation between Muslim countries.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Pakistan Premier Shaukat Aziz will give special keynote addresses at the forum.

Other special guests include Dr. Nazrin Shah, the crown prince of the Malaysian State of Perak and Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Jeddah.

It will consider some of the most pertinent issues currently affecting the Muslim countries.

The focus will be on issues including oil and energy security; public-private finance initiatives; the emerging socio-economic potential of Muslim women; strategic partnerships for poverty alleviation; and toward the creation of an Islamic free trade area.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, who is the chairman of the IDB Vision 1440H Commission and an adviser to Petronas, the Malaysian state oil utility, will give a special luncheon address on the theme: “Islamic Renaissance; Triumph over the Odds; Synergy in Action; Progress for All”.

The WIEF, which is jointly organized by the Malaysian Foreign Ministry, the Islamic Chamber of Commerce & Industry, the Islamic Center for the Development of Trade, and the Asian Strategy & leadership institute, and is supported by the IDB, will cover also regional and sectoral issues.

These include human capital development, trade and SMEs (small and medium enterprises), Islamic banking and finance, tourism, and infrastructure development and construction.

Promoting intra-Islamic trade, investment and development cooperation has been an ongoing challenge for organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) states and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) since their establishment some three decades ago.

Intra-Islamic trade currently is about 12 percent of the total trade of the 56 OIC member countries.

At the 30th IDB annual meeting held in Kuala Lumpur at end June 2005, boosting intra-Islamic trade and development dominated the agenda.

Malaysia, the host country put forward several suggestions including the adoption of its bilateral payments arrangement (BPAs) to facilitate easy and cost-effective settlement of accounts between countries at the central bank level.

It also called for the issuance of a global Islamic infrastructure bond to help the development of infrastructure especially in the developing member countries of the OIC; a preferential trade system of OIC countries; the introduction of a fair intra-Islamic system of procurement of goods and services; and the institutionalization and globalization of zakah and waqf through the establishment of a Universal Musharaka Fund, which could be modeled as a development aid fund.

Badawi is keen for OIC countries “to seriously consider the BPA form of trade facilitation, with a view to implementing it across many more OIC countries.”

To date Malaysia has BPA agreements with 24 countries, of which only nine are with OIC countries.

According to Bank Negara, the central bank), Malaysia’s trade with these nine OIC countries increased 30-fold in the period 1988-2004, compared with a ten-fold increase of the country’s total trade for the same period.

This suggests that the BPA with the nine OIC countries acted as a vital catalyst for increased trade.