Aziz unveils 9-pt formula for Muslim eco renaissance

Islamabad, Nov 9: Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz today proposed a nine-point action plan for Muslim Economic Renaissance and promotion of unity among the Islamic world to face new challenges.

After inaugurating the second World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF), the Prime Minister said the Muslim world was facing serious and multiple challenges and despite a significant progress made in many areas, a lot more need to be done to ensure rapid development.

Organised by the Pakistan government and the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute, the Forum brought together some 600 eminent personalities, business leaders and opinion makers from across the world.

WIEF, founded in 2003 as the OIC Business Forum, is an independent organisation committed to improving the state of the Muslim communities by engaging leaders to shape the future world, ensure social and economic development and integrate Muslim communities into global economy. Renamed as WIEF in 2004, the forum has its secretariat in Kuala Lumpur.

Mr Aziz expressed the confidence that the Muslim world, with its rich resources, vibrant energies and unflagging determination will overcome these challenges and open new avenues of progress and prosperity not only for Muslims but for the entire humanity.

Elaborating the way forward towards a Muslim economic renaissance, Mr Aziz said, it must consist of several integrated and calibrated measures including evolving an effective dispute resolution mechanism and put in place a sound framework for mutual cooperation.

The Prime Minister emphasised for undertaking necessary political, economic and social reforms to create an enabling environment for harnessing individual and collective potential.

He also called for concentrating on good governance, transparency and consistent economic policies to achieve the desired results.

He said the eventual goal should be to create an Islamic Economic Union towards which ''we can begin by entering into multilateral free trade agreements as well as promoting the free flow of capital, labour, goods and services''.

Mr Aziz said growing divide between the Muslim world and the West, wrongly projected by some as a clash of civilizations, was an important challenge facing the Islamic world. Public opinion in the western world was gripped by misperceptions about our faith.

He said, Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Kashmir continue to face insecurity, death and destruction.

''There is a need to highlight the root-cause of extremism which breeds in the smoldering fires of injustice and resentment not only in Muslim societies but in all societies,'' he stressed.

He said the world community had the responsibility to remove these causes.

UNI