JEDDAH, 23 October 2006 — Earlier this month cotton-producing members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference adopted a five-year action plan for strengthening economic and commercial cooperation between the organization’s 57 member states for enhancing cotton production.
Cotton plays an important role in the socio-economic development of many of the OIC’s member states, particularly in west and central Africa where more than 16 million people are involved in cotton production. The region is the second-largest exporter of cotton after the United States, comprising 15 percent of the international market.
However, the sector in most of these countries faces development challenges in terms of production, marketing, financing and international competition.
Cotton is a major export in a significant number of OIC member countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Togo. In those countries, cotton accounts for between 5 and 10 percent of gross domestic product and exports of cotton accounts for over one-third of all exports and over 60 percent of income from agricultural exports.
According to 2005/2006 data, twenty OIC cotton-producing countries have a share of 28 percent of the world total cotton production, 24 percent of world total cotton consumption, 36 percent of world cotton export and 27 percent of world cotton imports.
Yet, despite these competitive advantages, the cotton industry in many OIC member states is still characterized by several production, processing, institutional and structural weaknesses that jeopardize its viability in an era of increasing globalization and competition in world cotton industry.
The cotton sector in many OIC member countries still face serious challenges emanating from the continued high levels of subsidies paid to the cotton producers in developed countries and the drop in international cotton prices.
The decline in use of cotton fibers over time in favor of synthetic chemical fibers and the pressure of high competition at the international level have also produced a serious loss of export revenues. As a result, those countries, particularly with small-scale producers, are losing world-market share and suffering deterioration of income and rising poverty. On the other hand, some OIC cotton-producing countries, such as Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt, have accumulated a vast experience in producing efficient, high-quality cotton.
Given the state of affairs and considering the important role and strategic place cotton occupies in the economies of many OIC member states, there is an urgent need for seeking ways and means to stimulate cooperation among the OIC countries in the cotton sector.
In this context, the development of cotton sector in the OIC countries requires medium and long-term strategies to create conditions for boosting the existing industrial capacities, promoting foreign direct investment and developing industrial, financial, commercial and technical partnerships among OIC member countries.
This is also important for exchanging expertise in the areas of cotton processing and training in production that would enable these countries to develop added-value post-production of the cotton into textiles.
In this context, the OIC cotton-producing countries met in Istanbul this month and adopted the so-called Action Plan for the OIC Cotton Producing Countries’ Cooperation Development Strategy (2007-2011).
The plan aims at reducing poverty through the development of the cotton sector through increases cooperation, implementation tools, timeframes and expected outputs/impacts.
Among the measures taken for the implementation of this plan is a mid-term review in 2009. The General Secretariat of the OIC, the Islamic Development Bank and the advisory board will undertake to initiate and supervise preparation of concrete projects to be reviewed. They will coordinate efforts to ensure the financing and the effective, speedy implementation of the action plan as well as organizing trade fairs with the participation of cotton producers, traders and businessmen active in textile industry.
Three centers of excellence will be selected — one in Africa, one for Arab countries, and one for Asian countries — with a view of harmonizing and strengthening research for the development of the cotton sector.