Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
The Collective Voice of The Muslim World
Date: 08/11/2007
Istanbul, Republic of Turkey 12-13 November 2007 Your Excellency Mr. Zafer Caglayan, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Turkey, Distinguished Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, Assalamu Aleikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh. I would like, first of all, to extend to all the participants my greetings and best wishes for a successful outcome. I would also like to avail of this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Government and people of the Republic of Turkey for hosting and organization of this important Forum as well as for all the arrangements made to ensure its success. I must convey my regrets for not being able to attend this important meeting personally due to unavoidable commitments. I wish also to voice my appreciation to the Islamic Development Bank for its contribution towards the organization of this event. This Forum of Improving Investment and Trade in Cotton Sector between Member Countries of the OIC comes as a natural follow up to the three OIC Expert Group Meetings in the field of Cotton, which were held in 2005 and 2006. The OIC General Secretariat gives prime importance to the development of the cotton industry in the Member States. In this connection, I undertook a tour to six least developed OIC Member States in Africa in March 2005. I visited to Burkina Faso, Chad, Gambia, Mali, Niger and Senegal to obtain first hand information on the prevailing socio-economic conditions in these countries, and on the efforts being implemented or planned to help them economically and socially. During this tour, it was agreed, inter alia, for energizing the development of food and cotton industries in these countries through the promotion of joint ventures among the Member States. The low income OIC countries lack financial resources and skilled manpower to effectively develop the cotton sector. In fact the price of cotton has, over recent years, witnessed a severe drop that has caused the ruin of peasants, particularly in the Sub-Saharan countries. As a matter of fact the price of cotton on the international market has at times dropped below production costs on account of the American and European subsidies. I am therefore hopeful that your present forum will look into all these questions and evolve ways and means to allow for an optimal development of this cotton sector in the OIC Member States. In view of the importance of this issue, the General Secretariat of the OIC will follow up all implementation of decisions adopted by various meetings in this domain and liaise with the international and regional organization concerned with the issue of cotton in order to held achieve our objectives in this domain. I would also like to state that the Third Expert Group Meeting on Enhancing Production Efficiency and International Competitiveness in OIC Cotton Producing Countries, held in Antalya, Turkey, on 9-12 October 2006, adopted the Action Plan for OIC Cotton Producing Countries’ Cooperation Development Strategy (2007-2011) and this Action Plan approved by the 22nd Session of the COMCEC. I hope that the implementation of this Five-Year Action Plan will increase the cotton production efficiency and the higher competitiveness for this product in the OIC Member States. I wish to refer here to the initiative of the Government of the Republic of Turkey to implement a program aimed at strengthening trade, investment and technology transfer in favour of Africa. This program which seeks, among other things, to provide Africa with the necessary social infrastructure and to lay down the foundations for a sustainable development for the continent, has already achieved notable success. I wish also to refer here to the OIC Ten-Year Program, as adopted by the Third Extraordinary Islamic Summit, held in Makkah Al Mukarramah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in December 2005. I therefore hope your meeting will take into account of both the Turkish program for the development of Africa and the OIC Ten-Year Program in this reflection exercise for the promotion of the cotton sector in our countries. We need to develop joint projects and make full use of the natural, financial, technical and technological resources available to us within the framework of our States and institutions in order to achieve our objectives. The Makkah Summit has underlined the pivotal role of the private sector in the development of economic and commercial cooperation among Member States. The strengthening of relations between Muslim businessmen will contribute to the development of member states to invest in OIC Member States and to develop partnership relations with their counterparts in OIC Member States. Therefore, I would like to mention that the Project on development of Cotton sector in the OIC Member States is one of the priorities Project of the OIC in the private sector and I hope that we will achieve the progress in this sector in near future. Finally, I assure you of the continued active support of the OIC General Secretariat and its organs and institutions in the process of implementation of the OIC Ten-Year Programme of Action and OIC Five-Year Action Plan on Cotton, of which this forum is a part. I hope that our Participants will crown the OIC Cotton sector with their valuable proposals for this Forum. I am confident that this Forum will contribute towards achieving these noble objectives. I thank you all and wish you total success in your deliberations. Wassalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh.
