Dr. Seyed AliMohammad Mousavi, the D-8 Secretary-General, visited Gaziantep, Turkey on 19 April 2016 to attend 5th UCLG-MEWA Congress meeting. During his visit, he met Mr. Ali Yerlikaya, the Governor of Gaziantep and thanked, through him, the Government of the Republic of Turkey for their continuous support toward the D-8. They exchanged views, among others, on migration issue in Gaziantep which hosts high number of Syrian refugees.

Apart from this meeting, Dr. Mousavi addressed an audience in a seminar at the Gaziantep University. The D-8 Secretary-General interacted and exchanged with academicians and students. He highlighted that the D-8 with a combined population of over 1 (one) billion and a market size of more than $1 trillion, is set to emerge as one of the world’s most promising trade blocs and has achieved impressive progress in intra-trade of 120 Billion USD by 2014.  “We are looking forward to achieving the target of $500 billion for intra-trade by 2018, which has been set by our leaders”, added Dr. Mousavi.