LAHORE: The looming economic challenges facing the Islamic bloc need unity and close result-oriented interactions among the member countries.
Their close cooperation and unity can improve the intra-trade by 25 percent in the next 10 years through ‘trade preferential system’ and other legal frameworks, and an effective mobilisation of financial instruments and infrastructure support. This was stated by Life member, Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) and SAARC Chamber Vice-President, Iftikhar Ali Malik, on Monday while talking to a high-level delegation of traders from the Arab countries here.
Speaking at a luncheon, hosted by Iftikhar Ali Malik in the honour of the visiting delegation, he said that current volume of trade among the Muslim countries was estimated at around 19 per cent of the total global trade. That could be increased to a great extent if the barriers were removed among the Muslim countries and unity was forged among their ranks, he added. He also highlighted the importance of development of financial resources of the Islamic Chamber to enable it to play a role towards resolving crucial issues.
Iftikhar Malik called for strengthening economic cooperation among Islamic countries and doubling the volume of trade exchanges among them through provision of greater trade and investment opportunities available in the Islamic countries.
He said that the more interesting fact that the share of trade of Muslim countries with the EU countries was 20% and with China it was 13 percent.
