D-8 Council of Ministers convenes

The 12th Session of the D-8 Council of Ministers kicked off on Monday morning in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian capital, with the presence of foreign ministers of Iran and other member states.

It is scheduled that during the meeting, D-8 foreign ministers study the past year’s performance of the council and the latest programs implemented by the council. They will also confer about the ways of implementing the council’s approvals.

The session is also to review reports about the 26th and 27th commission of senior officials and the 2010 budget of D8 secretariat.

Different agreements in the fields of customs cooperation, removal of preferential tariffs and giving visa to tradesmen will be discussed in the meeting. By implementing the agreements, traders would be able to promote their economic activities in D-8 member states.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki spoke of IRI’s offer for establishing an especial fund which would provide necessary financial sources for implementing joint projects of the D-8 group.

In today’s session the D-8 member states will offer their proposals within the framework of the group’s ten-year road map in the field of ensuring food security.

The road map which has been approved at the sixth meeting of the senior officials’ commission defines framework and policies of the D-8 group in different fields for ten years.

The volume of D-8 member states’ trade exchanges is more than one billion dollars. The group’s members have decided to increase the volume by at least 5 percent.

The D8 was established on June 15, 1997, in Istanbul, Turkey, comprising Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey with a combined population of 900 million. Malaysia took over the chairmanship of the D8 last year.

The grouping aims to be the mechanism for cooperation in the economic sector through sharing of expertise to improve the position of member countries in global economy.