Cairo Declaration of D-8 countries
Regional, Economics, 2/26/2001

In the end of the D-8 summit in Cairo, the participating heads of state addressed many significant issues for the best interest of the group. The Declaration reflects member states' hopes and aspirations as follows (The full text):

1- We the presidents of Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey and Bangladesh met in Cairo, Egypt on February 25, 2001 in the third summit of the Group of Eight Developing Countries (D-8) and reviewed international developments and the status of cooperation among our countries.

In this context, we stress our determination to implement the goals of the Istanbul statement in pursuit of our endeavors to respond to our peoples' aspirations to prosperity, development and higher standards of living.

2- We are convinced that Cairo Summit is held at a time that witnesses better economic situations of the D-8 member-states especially those suffering from financial crises that had earlier hit a number of developing countries. Although the D-8 member-states mostly enjoy today higher rates of economic growth, still they are facing a number of serious economic challenges.

3- We are also convinced that 2001, as the year of inter-civilization dialogue, bears broad hopes for greater and deeper understanding that will help buttress the sense of unity and solidarity among countries and peoples of the international community in general. The D-8 member-states have been actively calling for that dialogue and we are still keen on attaining its goals and rendering it a success.

The World Economic Situation 4- We express our deep concern over the slowdown currently seen in a number of the economies of major powers that can aggravate the already existing structural imbalances in global economy and cause damage to the perseverent efforts exerted by our countries to overcome the challenges they face.

5- In addition, the decline of global rates of growth will weaken ability of world economy to sustain development efforts with the dynamism and vigour required to address economic and financial turmoils that may emerge in future especially in the developing countries, thus increasing the fragility of the world economic order as a whole.

6- Hence, we appeal to the advanced economies to exert the utmost effort to restore momentum through, inter alia, stimulating domestic demand and resisting protectionist orientations in order to reduce to the least possible level the potential reflections of such slowdown on the development efforts of the developing countries.

Globalization 7- While the phenomenon of globalization has made available to the world community a number of opportunities, it has also imposed challenges and risks thereon.

Although this phenomenon entails opportunities to boost welfare and yield many benefits to our nations, it also maximizes the risks of marginalizing a large number of developing countries. Above all, it widens the existing gap within each country and between different countries, raising the number of the poor in the world.

The current imbalance and instability in global economy are the major problems calling for immediate attention by the world community. In this context, we reiterate the need to revive the spirit of cooperation and partnership of the international agenda based on the principle of joint and variable responsibilities with the object of achieving greater justice in distributing the fruits of globalization in such a way that will lead to promoting the welfare of our peoples and realizing the interests of the world community in general.

8- We note with concern the inability of developing countries to obtain a fair share of the benefits of globalization. The socioeconomic conditions of a number of developing and less developing countries have undergone a noticeable decline.

We believe that urgent actions must be taken to meet the needs and requirements of the vast majority of our people living in abject poverty. Failing these, globalization can not be expected to create progress and prosperity we all seek to fulfill for the world community.

9- The motive power of globalization needs to be rationalized and managed, taking into consideration our need to realize social justice, attract more investments and guarantee for our products a larger share of the world markets. From this standpoint, it is necessary to share up mechanisms of consultations amongst our countries and intensify our coordinating and cooperative efforts geared to implement these common goals.

10- Moreover, we are convinced that regional cooperation between developing countries through the exchange of resources and technical expertise is a critical requirement to face the challenges of globalization. In the same vein, we believe that cooperation between regional and international organizations is a matter of great importance.

Reform of the International Financial Order 11- Successive financial crisis and their related contagious effects have emphasized the need to strengthen cooperation efforts exerted on international level in order to develop the international financial order. In spite of our support to the current reform process, we are still convinced that, in addition to effective crisis management wherever it arises and strengthened early warning systems as protective means against financial crisis, yet the reform efforts should guarantee response by the international financial order to the developmental needs and interests of the Developing Countries.

12- The reform of the international financial order, among other things, is essential to ensure the mobilization of more stable source of investments flows to greater numbers of developing countries and control the rapid moving short-term capital. It is also necessary that reform would be carried out within the framework of a democratic and transparent decision-making process.

Financing Development 13- We welcome the high-level intergovernmental Meeting on Financing Development to be held in 2002. This meeting will provide opportunities to discuss national and international structural issues related to financing development, including various channels to mobilize financing resources, alleviating debt burdens and trade advantages granted to developing countries.

This meeting should reflect further cooperation between the United Nations and international financing institutions and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in addition to effective participation by developing and advanced countries in a genuine spirit of partnership, variable responsibilities and mutual benefits.

Trade 14- Compliance with a fair, open-ended multilateral trade system, governed by fixed rules is essential for both developing and advanced countries alike. Lengthy and complicated discussion currently underway with WTO have obviously indicated a lack of political will necessary to meet the legitimate needs of developing countries within the framework of multilateral trade order.

15- We strongly believe that there is an increasing need to restore confidence in the multilateral trade order. To this end, the advanced countries should be committed to the full and honest implementation, in letter and spirit, of the Urguay Round Agreements. Moreover, it is necessary that advanced countries should avoid using discrete forms of protectionism. On the other hand, the provisions of WTO, related to special and preferential treatment of developing countries should be strengthened and reactivated.

In addition, the growing integration of all developing countries including the less developing countries into the multilateral trade order, is a basic component of any effort exerted to regain confidence in multilateral trade order. In this context, we emphasize the universal principle of WTO membership. Also we do call for accelerating the accession to WTO by developing countries. We also call upon all WTO member-states in this regard to abstain from overburdening these countries with exaggerated demands.

16- We strongly believe that development issues should be a top-priority item of any future agenda of multilateral trade negotiations. We should strongly seek to ensure that initiatives to be launched in future under WTO, will take into consideration the welfare and interests of the developing countries, especially in the way of improving access to technology and the need to straighten out and rectify existing imbalances in the multilateral trade order.

Information and Communication Technology 17- We appreciate the tremendous opportunities made available to the development process by the information and communication technology revolution and its role in the process of integrating into the global economy in the 21st century.

In this context, it is important to re-affirm that the developing countries have exerted efforts to assimilate and incorporate communication and information technology tools into their socioeconomic developmental programs. We now demand the advanced countries to support such efforts.

18- We also underscore the prominent role of the private sector and international researches centers in enhancing and facilitating the transfer of financial resources and technical know-how including research and development to developing countries in various fields of communication technology.

19- These concerted efforts among all various parties concerned with information and communication technology are an essential instrument to bridge digital gap that currently keep advanced and developing countries apart.

Development, Debts and Poverty 20- We reaffirm the pressing need to sustain efforts aiming at reducing growing socioeconomic disparities between the well-to-do and the poor within and among countries. We affirm once again that the official development aids will remain a decisive and influential factor of development process for most developing countries and that the continuing erosion in official development aids levels indeed is a serious issue. In this context, we call upon the advanced countries to pay utmost attention to the development needs of both the developing and less developed countries and to reverse the current downtrend in official development aid levels. We also appeal to these countries to respect their commitments, especially as regards the allocation of 0.7% of their total gross domestic product to official development aids to the developing countries and 0.15% to 0.2 % of their GDP to the least developed countries.

21- The increasing aggravation of poverty where more than a billion person live under inhuman circumstances has called for a strategic partnership for development aiming at halving the percentage of population suffering from such tribulation by 2015 and creating favorable conditions to achieve the long-term objective of eliminating poverty as agreed upon during the International Food Summit in 1996.

22- We are still concerned about the problem of foreign debts that represents a major roadblock to the development drive that aims at breaking the vicious circle of poverty in the developing and the least developed countries. Moreover, we are worried over the pace of increase in the debt service burden that now exceeds the volume of debt principal. Debt repayment rate has turned into an additional burden to low and medium-income developing countries. Consequently, we demand our partners in development to take new and effective measures to reduce debt burden in order to accelerate the release of national resources for development, mobilization of financial resources in the developing and least developed countries necessary to fund a competitive base for economic development and the building of a strong social infrastructure.

23- We recognize that mobilizing foreign resources in the service of the development process is marked with on increasing influx of private resources to the developed countries.

As a result, international investments-especially foreign direct investments- have emerged as a motive power of the global economy. We once again underscore the numerous benefits of foreign direct investments, being source of high productivity, transfer of technology, creative organizational and management practices and integration into the global economy.

24- We assert indeed that in spite of the improvement in competitiveness and policies applied in the developing countries, with the object of attracting more foreign direct investments flows, these investments are still concentrated within a limited number of countries.

Hence, there is a pressing need to create favorable international environment for the efforts of the developing countries to ensure that the tools of applicable national investment policies will yield better results in terms of enhancing market factors and increasing productive investments.

Part Two: 25- Having reviewed the progress achieved in implementing D-8 projects and programs, we express our satisfaction with the successful completion of a number of such projects and programs. Moreover, we pay tribute to all D-8 governments for supporting a realistic and flexible orientations as regards the priorities of areas of cooperation and the selection of appropriate practicable and workable projects in such areas.

26- Once more, we confirm the importance of inter-trade among member-states and express our deep appreciation of the efforts exerted in this respect. We also look forward to redoubling current rates of inter-trade over five years.

27- In this context, we congratulate the Arab Republic of Egypt for its efforts in setting up the International Trade and Marketing Company and hereby endorse the preliminary abstract of the feasibility study submitted in this respect. At the same time we express our deep thanks for the Islamic Development Bank for financing such study. We kindly request the coordinating country to take necessary steps, in cooperation with the D-8 member-states to set up this company soon, and in all cases, within a year.

28- We also welcome the efforts of the coordinating countries for a number of the group's projects and programs in fields related to trade as follows:- a- Concluding and signing an agreement streamlining via procedures for businessmen prepared by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

b- Proposing the creation of a framework for constructive dialogue among business communities and shipping companies and ship-owners associations.

c- Forming a panels of senior officers of the central banks and the ministries of finance, to be charged with the functions of streamlining and adapting banking procedures.

d- Completing work for establishing a trade database and inviting member-states to regularly provide this site with their respective trade information, thus realizing common interest for all member-states.

29- In this context, the commissioners' committee is hereby instructed to intensify action in the way of facilitating trade and customs procedures including the elimination of existing commercial obstacles among member-states. We urge these states to show rapid response to the committee in this respect .

30- We congratulate the Turkish Air Industries Authority for its success in manufacturing and testing the original model of an agricultural plane. Building on the principle of working partnership, the commissioners committee is hereby instructed to take necessary steps to start commercial production of the plane, taking into consideration economic feasibility, quantitative requirements by member-states and potential contributions by these countries in financing the project.

31- We hail the Islamic Republic of Iran for launching its technological industrial database web site on the Internet. We invite member-states to provide their national web sites on the Internet with the necessary information in these areas and make regular updates to such information.

32- We express our appreciation to the member-states for organizing over thirty meetings, including workshops, symposia and training programs-etc., since Dakka Summit from the perspective of exchanging information, experience and experiments in different fields of common interest.

Stimulated by the good rates of participation in such meetings by member-states, at an average of 65 percent, and within the context of our invitation to the governments to follow up the implementation of the recommendations of such meetings, we do invite the governments of states coordinating projects and programs, each in its own specialty, to hold further meetings in these vital areas and consider the possibility of organizing as many ministerial meetings as may be needed to give momentum and encourage more cooperation among the group member-states.

33- In this context, from among a number of such meetings, we welcome the following : * A meeting of the working group on energy to be organized by Nigeria next April.

* A training program on privatization to be organized by Malaysia this year.

* A Training program on waste monitoring systems, rules of health sciences and quality control procedures to be organized by Turkey.

* A workshop on biotechnology initiative to increase agricultural production, a workshop on organic and alternative fertilizers, and symposium on protecting genetic resources of livestock, all to be organized by Pakistan.

* A workshop on rehabilitating rural community by using appropriate technology to eliminate poverty, to be organized by Indonesia next May.

* A workshop to be organized by Bangladesh on exchanging experience and developing specific cooperation projects in fields of rural development, including Egypt's proposal on a comprehensive orientation to encourage rural industrialization that combines rural with nonagricultural activities, based on the rural industrialization concept.

34. We also welcome the proposed frameworks of cooperation discussed at both the commissioner's committee and the Ministerial Councils. We demand the concerned committees of the Group to consider these frameworks and urgently proceed with the relevant executive program. The frameworks of cooperation include among others, the following : * The Egyptian proposal for cooperation and coordination among insurance and reinsurance companies in D-8 member states to collectively confront new challenges in the global economy capitalizing on the huge potential of the national insurance markets and in view of the vital role played by the insurance industry in mobilizing natural savings and consolidating capital formation process. In this context, we welcome the proposal by the Government of Malaysia to invite representatives of regulatory and supervisory insurance authorities to formulate means of creating a mechanism of cooperation between such authorities.

* In recognition of the need to address the question of poverty as a complementary component of the development process and to redouble our efforts to halve poverty rates in our countries by 2015, in line with our international commitments, we welcome the initiation of effective and fresh cooperation between member-states in the following areas: a- Design a "Best Practices site within the D-8 website on the Internet, providing the potential of sharing in the identification of the experiments of member-states in the successful projects of poverty elimination.

b- Exchange experiences among the D-8-member-states in the field of financing micro enterprises .

c- Utilize appropriate technology geared to eliminate poverty.

d- Issue a bulletin on existing trends in the D-8 member-states related to human development and poverty elimination mechanisms and programs.

In recognition of the remaining difficulties facing small and medium-size enterprises in the D-8 memeber-states, relating to their integration into the global economy and need to provide better job opportunities, we appreciate Egypt's proposal to create frameworks for joint ventures in addition to Turkey's proposal for an action program to activate cooperation between small and medium-size enterprises, components of both proposals are to be formulated within a workshop to be hosted soon by Turkey.

Egypt's proposal for cooperation in using solid agricultural waste for generating electricity in order to meet the needs of rural development and simultaneously provide better environmental protection. Forms of such cooperation are to be developed during a symposium on technical aspects of cooperation in the field of environment to be organized by the Islamic Republic of Iran this June or July.

35- We call the governments of D-8 member-states to closely monitor the above-mentioned meetings and follow up the implementation of such projects and programs that may result therefrom. We also demand the Commissioners' Committee to consider available means to accelerate executive procedures and maximize the benefits of D-8 activities in the service of all member states. We also invite the committee to submit a report on the progress to be achieved in this respect through the Ministerial Council to the coming summit.

36- In recognition of the vital and principal role of the private sector in realizing the D-8 goals for cooperation in all fields, including trade, investment and industrial cooperation, we have been informed and do appreciate the coming into effect of the Charter of the D-8 Business Forum for Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Businessmen Associations based on which the Forum was established. We also invite member-states who have not so far signed the Charter to do as soon as possible. In this vein, we appreciate Egypt's initiative for convening the first meeting of the Business Forum in parallel with the Third Summit Meeting. In this respect, we encourage close interaction among Businessmen in the member-states.

37- We welcome the resolution approved by the Organization of the Islamic conference Summit meeting in Doha to create a channel of communication between the D-8 and the Organization as well as the ongoing communications between the D-8 executive director and the Organization Secretary General to forge out forms of cooperation between both sides.

38- The Commissioners' Committee is hereby instructed to consider the possibility of setting up an institutional relationship between the D-8 and other international and regional organizations, particularly the Islamic Development Bank, the United Nations Development Program, Food and Agriculture Organization, The United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the World Trade Organization.

39- Arrangements taken to co-finance the Coordination Unit budget are hereby endorsed. It is hereby decided to review these provisional arrangements, including the contributions list by the end of Egypt's term of chairmanship of the group, taking into consideration relevant resolutions.

40- We express deep appreciation to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and her government for their effective leadership of the Group during Bangladeshi term of chairmanship.

41- We also express our appreciation for the people and government of the Arab Republic of Egypt for the warm hospitality and excellent arrangements taken to render the meeting of the Group's third summit a success.

42- We welcome and appreciate the kind offer extended by the government of Indonesia to host the meeting of the Group's fourth summit in Jakarta in 2003.

Previous Stories:
  D-8 Summit, new boost to economic cooperation   (2/24/2001)
  Cairo declaration stresses vital role of private sector   (2/24/2001)
  Profit making, major aim of the company; D-8 countries   (2/22/2001)

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