Dr. Seyed Ali Mohammad Mousavi, D-8 Secretary-General, attended as a keynote speaker in the conference on ‘D-8 Contributions to Economic Cooperation’ organized by the Anatolian Business Association (ASKON) in Izmir, Turkey.

During the conference Dr. Mousavi stated that as D-8 being an economic organization, trade is the backbone of its cooperation and the D-8 leaders set the target of intra trade of USD 500 billion by 2018. “If we look at the potential of each Member State of D-8, this target is achivable with the implementation of D-8 main instruments, the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA), Visa and Custom Agreements and also by improved linkages and efficient networking between D-8 private sector”, he said. 

Dr. Mousavi also highlighted the D-8 trade volume and the figures: “The volume of D-8 intra-trade increased impressively from US$ 15 billion in 1997 to almost US$ 150 billion in 2012. By percentage share to the volume of D-8 total trade, growth of D-8 intra-trade increased from 3.4% in 1997 to 8.2% in 2012, which represents a solid improvement”,  he added. 

He also underlined that in order to increase D-8 intra-trade and meet the 2018 target, the implementation of D-8 Agreements on Trade, Visa and Custom played a vital role. “Furthermore, for reaching this target we need the active involvement of the private sector of D-8 Member States”, he added. He finally underlined that the share of Turkish exports to D-8 countries increased from US$ 2.2 billion in 1997 to almost US$ 15 Billion in 2012. “These figures show that the volume of Turkey’s export to the D-8 boosted up to seven times during 1997-2012” Dr. Mousavi concluded.