Last week, the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur hosted the Sixth World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF). In the forum, bearing the theme ‘Gearing for Economic Resurgence’ top economic experts discussed the manners of expansion of cooperation among Islamic states.

The Iranian minister of finance Seyyed Shemseddin Hosseini had attended the confab heading a high-ranking delegation. We have prepared a special program in this regard. Stay tuned.

The 6th World Islamic Economic Forum finished its work on Thursday 20th of May by issuing a statement underlining the need to counter the consequences of the West’s Economic crisis and to present new and effective solutions to hinder financial and economic crisis.

Addressing the forum’s inaugural ceremony, the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono considered the current global conditions as a great opportunity to change the image of the Muslim Ummah in the 21st century. He called on the Islamic states to benefit from the existing conditions for strengthening the economic foundations of the Muslim countries by learning lessons from the western countries mistakes during the recent economic crisis. Noting that just half a percent of the world investments are formed through Islamic financial institutions, the Indonesian president called for boosting of cooperation among Muslim states for joint investment.

During the inaugural speech of the WIEF, the Malaysian prime minister Najib Tun Razak raised the proposal on setting up a clean energy bank by the Islamic states. The Iranian finance minister Seyed Shemseddin Hussieni referred at Kuala Lumpur meeting to the need for concluding commercial contracts among the Muslim states, elaborated on the grounds of cooperation between private and investment sects at Iran’s stock market and termed the market as a good opportunity for the presence of foreign investors.

Studies show that over the two decades leading to the 1990s, 42 developing countries that have taken decisive steps to join the world economy have gained access to a higher income, longer life expectancy and better education. Those countries have enjoyed a 5 percent growth rate per capita. Many of the developing countries including China, India, Hungary, and Mexico have adopted policies that provided the use of world markets for their countries to increase the share of trading in their gross national product. Nonetheless, joining globalization has not been successful for all countries. Based on some reports, two billion people especially in the littoral regions of African Sahara, the Middle East and the Central Asian Republics are exposed to economic recession and poverty.

This shows that gaining access to globalization has not been useful for all developing countries. Therefore solving the problems of those countries depends on various factors including improvement of investment conditions. Experts stress that the developing countries can achieve spectacular economic progresses but this objective can be materialized through more efforts and boosting economic relations among these countries.

Presently a number of the Islamic states like Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt enjoy economic and scientific capabilities for development. The use of these capacities requires taking measures like creation of a great center of creativity and innovation in the Islamic world and training specialized manpower. These issues were stressed in the final statement of Kuala Lumpur meeting. Nevertheless, materialization of objectives such as development of trade, elimination of poverty and reduction of unemployment are in need of long term and mid term plans and decisions.

In order to push forward part of these objectives, bilateral or multi-lateral economic agreements should be drawn up in the fields of customs cooperation and tariff trading among the Muslim states. According to experts, religious, cultural, and politico-economic convergence of Muslim nations in the international arenas is among the factors which provide appropriate opportunities for pushing forward those objectives.

At the same time, these elements solely cannot solve the problems looming over the economy of the Muslim world in the 21st century. Therefore, the member states of the organization of the Islamic conference should make more serious efforts for implementation of the content of Kuala Lumpur statement.