The Developing-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation (D-8) has successfully convened its 4th Meeting of the Trade Ministers Council (TMC,) as well as the preceding Senior Officials Meeting (SOM), in Cairo, Egypt on 2 December 2025. The meeting, hosted by the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt, had in attendance Ministers of Trade and other Heads of Delegation from the Member States.

During their meeting, the Trade Ministers reiterated their collective determination to strengthen economic cooperation, enhance trade facilitation, as well as advance institutional mechanisms that will enable the D-8 to emerge as a more integrated, competitive, and impactful economic bloc. Furthermore, they expressed the hope that the decisions taken at the Cairo meeting would provide the renewed impetus, to increase intra-D-8 trade relations and contribute meaningfully to shared prosperity, for their mutual benefits.

In his remarks, the Secretary-General of the D-8 Organization, Ambassador Isiaka Abdulqadir Imam, commended Egypt’s effective and result oriented leadership, since she assumed the Chairmanship of the organization. He reaffirmed the Secretariat’s support for Member States in translating their political commitments, into tangible trade outcomes. He noted, with satisfaction, the growing momentum, amongst member states, towards expanding the D-8 PTA into a more progressive instrument, supported by institutional cooperation, with a view to achieving the collective target of USD 500 billion in intra-D-8 trade, by 2030.

While delivering his address, the Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade of Egypt, Eng. Hassan El-Khatib, lamented the considerable underutilized economic potentials of the D-8 and called on member states for accelerated implementation of the agreed trade instrument such as the D-8 Preferential Trade Agreement (D-8 PTA). He highlighted the importance of operationalizing the D-8 PTA as well as advancing discussions toward a more comprehensive and future-oriented trade framework, that would be capable of responding to global economic shifts, strengthening resilience, and unlocking intra-D-8 trade opportunities, particularly for SMEs and youth-led enterprises.

A key outcome of the ministerial meeting was the adoption of the “Cairo Declaration on Trade’’, which sets out a clear and actionable roadmap to deepen trade integration, among Member States. Through the Declaration, Ministers:

• Welcomed the continued operationalization of the D-8 PTA;
• Encouraged remaining Contracting Members to accelerate their domestic procedures to ensure full implementation;
• Endorsed the work of the Supervisory Committee of the D-8 PTA and tasked it, together with the Experts Working Group, to advance analytical and technical work on expanding the D-8 PTA, into a broader and more comprehensive framework;
• Expressed a shared resolve to explore pathways toward a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) or other equivalent progressive trade arrangements; and
• Reaffirmed the central role of the private sector, including SMEs, in driving sustainable trade growth, and supported enhanced business-to-business engagement, across D-8 economies.
One of the highlights of the Meeting was the offer of the Government of Türkiye to host the Permanent Secretariat of the D-8 Chambers of Commerce and Industry (D-8CCI) in Istanbul, in collaboration with the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB), thus marking a significant institutional step, toward strengthening the private-sector engagement within the D-8 framework.