ISTANBUL
The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has said that although the trade volume went up among Muslim countries, some OIC members did not share their excitement on improving economic cooperation.
Attending a ministerial summit of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC) on Thursday, Ihsanoglu told AA correspondent that they plan to increase the trade volume among member countries to 20 percent as of 2015.
He said that they gave a start to "elective trade" with the approval of 10 member countries but it was a hard task to achieve as the member countries were not as excited as they were.
COMCEC started to function with the first meeting held in Istanbul in November, 1984. The duties of COMCEC as agreed in the Third Islamic Summit are; monitoring the decisions that were taken or will be taken on economic and commercial cooperation by OIC; taking necessary precautions to strengthen the economic and commercial cooperation between the member countries; and preparing plans and offering recommendations to increase the economic and commercial capacity of the member countries.
COMCEC convenes in ministerial level annually in Istanbul, Turkey.
