Business among people of the grouping disappointing, she says  

A News and Images report 

Dhaka, July 9: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged the Developing-8 member states at the Abuja summit to evolve their own mechanism for establishing a D-8 free trade area to increase trade and business, according to reports reaching Dhaka.  

‘Trade among us, however, has been disappointing despite having a combined market of nearly one billion people,’ she said while addressing the seventh summit of D-8 countries at the State House of Nigeria on Thursday.  

Hasina said with the Doha Round remaining elusive, ‘we truly need a mechanism within our capacity for a D-8 Free Trade Area.’  

The theme of the D-8 summit this year is ‘Enhancing investment cooperation among D-8 countries’.  

The Istanbul-based D8 groups Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey with a total population of 930 million.  

The group of eight Muslim countries was established in 1997 to promote economic ties and solidarity among the member states. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Turkish president Abdullah Gul, host Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Nazif, Malaysian deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin, Indonesian minister for coordination M Hatta Rajasa and Pakistani commerce minister Makhdoom Mohammad Amin Fahim spoke at the concluding session of the summit. 

The prime minister said with proper recipe for trade and investment, and a market of a billion people, the D-8 could achieve 10-15 per cent of intra-D-8 trade by 2018, a target set two years ago in the Sixth Summit.  

She noted that the obstacles to attaining development had been due to lack of harmonization in standards and uniform sets of criteria in testing of quality. 

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