President of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines, and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Hossein Selahvarzi has once again underlined the urgency of launching an Islamic common market.
Selahvarzi, who was addressing the 39th Meeting of the General Assembly of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture (ICCIA) in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday, stressed the need for launching an Islamic common market which he said would lead to the removal of the restrictions and reduction of tariffs to help increase exchanges among OIC member countries.
Selahvarzi’s call for the formation of an Islamic common market comes as he had put forward the same proposal earlier in July when the previous edition of the meeting was held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Noting that making use of a preferential trade system is one of the main tools of the common market, he said that this system was on the agenda of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation and its protocol was signed by 16 member states including Iran and came into force in 2002.
He, however, noted that the protocol has not been executed so far which is partly due to the low trade and low investment among OIC member states.
Selahvarzi also stressed the need for more involvement of the private sectors in trade exchanges among the member countries.