According to the questionnaire developed by Travel and Leisure, one of the most popular travel magazines based in New York, Istanbul is the third-best city in Europe .

The magazine conducted a questionnaire in its latest issue in which magazine subscribers were asked to rate their favorite hotels, islands, cities, airlines, destination spas, and rental car agencies in the world and Europe.

Istanbul ranked third with 84.78 points out of 100, making it the readers' third favorite European destination after Florence and Rome. Istanbul surpassed Europe's most popular destinations including Paris, Barcelona, Venice and Prague .

Istanbul ranked eighth in the favorite world cities category, leaving New York, Sydney, Bangkok behind. It is also deemed the "most exotic city" of the world's ten best cities. 

The Four Seasons Hotel in Istanbul 's Sultanahmet district was chosen as Europe 's best hotel, receiving 93.55 points in the questionnaire. The Milestone Hotel in London was second and Relais Il Falconiere in Italy came in third.

D-8 Secretary General, Dr Dipo Alam, believes with the result of 22 July 2007 Election in Turkey , which implemented democratically, transparent, and peacefully, Istanbul, and other cities in Turkey such as Izmir, Bursa, Anatolia, Sanliurfa, Bodrum, etc. will more attract tourist, investors, and businessmen arrivals. Therefore, he expects D-8 member states should take this opportunity to work closely with Turkey in the sectors of civil aviation, tourism, trade and industry.

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Encouraging news are coming from automotive sectors of the D-8 Countries. Strong economic growth, continuous increment of the export volumes and huge domestic automotive market had made countries such as Iran and Indonesia to expand more their performances in automotive sector.

Iranian auto industry is the 16th largest in the world, producing one million buses, lorries and cars a year.

This is quite an impressive fact for an industry that started in 1957 by assembling Jeeps, and is still subject to US sanctions because of its links with Iran 's government and military, even though all motor industries have such links, as the Independent reported.

According to professor Tom Donnelly, the director of the Motor Industry Observatory at the Coventry University Business School, "Iran is a major player in the Middle East and it does have ambitions to play with the big boys of the motor industry, with a target to raise production to 1.6 million vehicles a year by next year."

A target, if achieved, would make it the same size as Britain 's.

The ambitions of Iran 's car industry now seem to match the ambitions of the Iranian government–to increase its bearing on the region and the world.

Iran has a population of 65 million: 50 million is the minimum level estimated by analysts to sustain an indigenous industry. The nation also has a low car ownership ratio of one in 10 and a highly educated workforce.

On the other side, the Indonesian automotive sector is still in the emerging state, mostly consisting of vehicle assembling companies. It had gained proficiency in the assembly of minivan in which local content is close to 60 percent. But the passenger car and two wheeler segments are still largely dependent on imported content leading to higher costs of production and operation.

Indonesia is actively boosting up her figures in this sector by enriching opportunities for research and development, as well as holding various motorshows to fuel the sales, such as the Indonesia International Motorshow (IIMS) 2007 held in Jakarta from July 19 to 28, 2007. The motorshow is expected to conclude a car sale transaction worth Rp1.005 trillion, the organizers said on Thursday.

"We hope the car sales during the IIMS 2007, would exceed that of last year," organizing committee chairman Johnny Darmawan, who is also president director of PT Toyota Astra Motor (TAM), said on the sidelines of the IIMS.

In Turkey itself, automotive sector ranked first in exportation with 28.1 percent share, according to the Istanbul Chamber of Industry's 500 largest firms of Turkey list. The sector's export for the first quarter of the year reached $3.4 billion, while the sector's imports totaled $2.2 billion during the same period. In 2006 the imports of the automotive sector totaled $14.3 billion.

Automotive industry in fact is one important industry within D-8 countries, and discussed during Working Group on Industry in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last May 2007. D-8 Secretariat expects the detail of cooperation of automotive industry within the member states will be further discussed in the next WG on Industry in Indonesia.

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Iranian Energy Minister, Parviz Fattah stated that Iran seriously intend to promote electrical energy exports to the neighbouring countries, because its value added is more than crude oil and gas. Fattah underlined that Iran has an electrical link with all its neighbouring countries, such as Turkey.

Upon a new agreement with Turkey, Iran will export around 6,000 megawatts of electricity through West Azerbaijan province. To achieve these goals, the electricity transmission lines should be strengthened and new power plants should be built in the border areas with Turkey. Currently 85 dams are being constructed around the country; 15 of which will be ready this year.

D-8 Organisation Director, Ambassador Kia Tabatabaee extended his contentment regarding this plan, and stated that the organisation will strive to give fullest support to broaden this cooperation scheme among other member states of D-8 as well.

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The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 47% of votes in Sunday's (22 July 2007) general elections in Turkey. This will allow the AKP to take 340 out of 550 seats in the Grand National Assembly and form a single-party government. The AKP managed to exceed expectations and scoop an extra 13% of votes, compared with the 2002 election results.

In the run up to Turkey's general election, the ruling AK Party has made much of the economic boom the country has experienced since it came to power in 2002 with record foreign investment, and lower inflation.

GNP growth was lower last year at 6%, compared with 7.9% in 2002. Inflation was 29.7% then and had fallen to 9.65% in 2006. Employment has dipped slightly from 10.3% to 9.9% and annual per capital income has risen from 2,150 euros in 2002 to 3,900 euros last year.

D-8 Organisation expresses her congratulation to all Turkish professional staff and Cabinet for winning the hearts and minds of brotherly Turkish people through an unprecedented transparent, peaceful and democratic election process.

 The full Congratulatory Letter is as follow:

26 July 2007

 Excellency,

It is with a great pleasure that I take this opportunity to congratulate you, your professional staff and Cabinet for winning the hearts and minds of brotherly Turkish people through an unprecedented transparent, peaceful and democratic election process. Your party won the parliamentary elections on such a high note that even your close allies were surprised and this was a vote of confidence to your economic, social and other policies through which you have been able to promote Turkey to a higher ground equally at home and abroad.  

 As Secretary General of Developing Eight Countries (D-8), I should also extend my felicitations to your Excellency on behalf of all member states and pray to Almighty that during your second term in office D-8 Organization would continue to receive the desired support and attention from Turkey, the host country for D-8. The role of Turkey within D-8 community is a unique one, and thus your special attention to promote its activities is called for.

                                                                                                       Dr.Dipo Alam
                                                                                                    Secretary General

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Republic of Turkey

To download the full Congratulatory Letter please click below:

Medical sector in Iran is gaining an important leap in the last decade, by producing and exporting about 120 kinds of herbal medicines, from just 10 kinds in the 1990s. The head of Traditional Medicine Research Center , Mahmoud Mosaddeq, elaborates this fact while speaking on the sidelines of the 3rd International Congress on Traditional Medicine and Material Medical in Malaysia . "At the moment, thanks to the progress in the field, some 120 drugs from medicinal plants (non-synthetic) are currently being produced domestically," he said.

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Indonesia's state-run oil and gas firm PT Pertamina said recently it has made the initial export of five containers of lube oil to Pakistan from its plant in Cilacap in Central Java .

The lube oil is produced by Pertamina in cooperation with SK Energy of South Korea.

Pertamina marketing director Achmad Faisal told reporters that Pertamina is targeting to export to Pakistan 12 containers per month. Each container carries about 14,000 liters.

He also said Pertamina may also try to export the lube oil to Vietnam and Russia .

D-8 Organizations pleased  by this Indonesian and Pakistan trade development, since trade between and Indonesia and Pakistan has been increase significantly since last five years. This indicates intra-trade among member states will growing well in coming years, especially after D-8 Preferential Trade Agreement will be ratified soon.

Malaysia's crude palm oil (CPO) production was expected to increase by 4.4% to 16.58mil tones this year, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said.

The target was to raise it to 20mil tones by 2020, he said in his speech at an agreement signing ceremony at Crown Towers here on Friday.

The agreement was between Kirana Palm Oil Refinery Sdn Bhd and BiPort Bulkers Sdn Bhd.

Last year, the country produced 15.88mil tones of CPO and 4.13mil tones of palm kernel oil, with the total export earnings jumping 11.7% to RM32.2bil.

"With its big landmass, Sarawak can further develop its palm oil industry in both the upstream and downstream sectors. Sarawak has developed some 600,000 ha of oil palm estates which are in various stages of maturity,'' he added.

Sarawak is now the fourth largest state, by area, planted with oil palm, and the state government's target is to increase the size to 1mil ha in the next several years.

In D-8 Working Group meeting last year, in Jakarta, Indonesia, renewable energy using palm oil for biodiesel was discussed seriously among member states. Malaysia and Indonesia are suppliers of palm oil in the world, that can be applied for cooking oil and in the future also potential for biodisel. This year, the Working Group of oil and gas will have a meeting in Cairo, Egypt .

Another cooperation opportunity arise in tourism sector betweeen two neighbouring countries which are also the member states of D-8 organisation: Turkey and Iran. Both countries are readying to cooperate in the field of tourism, indicated by a 31-member Iranian delegation visit representing the Iranian Travel Agencies Association to the eastern province of Van, Turkey, for a hotel project.

Muhammad Hassan Kirmani, Iranian Travel Agencies Association chairman, said they wanted to build a hotel in Van if they receive the necessary permission from Turkish authorities. "Our target market is Van. Van is a great opportunity for us in terms of tourism because we want to utilize Van as a transition spot for further investments in other cities such as Istanbul, Antalya , Bursa and Trabzon ."

Responding to this cooperation plan, Van Governor Özdemir Çakacak said the existing strong relations between Turkey and Iran come very obviously in tourism. "The two countries enjoy fruitful relations. The most concrete indicator is tourism, which is also an important component of the cultural exchange beyeetween the two countries," he said.

D-8 Secretariate, as commented by its Director, Ambassador Kia Tabatabaee expects that private sector's interest to invest in D-8 countries should be encouraged more. Tourism and civil aviation of D-8 countries are sector that now well growing for private sector business. "These area of works are to be discussed further in D-8 expert meeting in August in West Azarbaijan, a province of Iran, on Eco-tourism," he said.

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Secretariat plans issues on Export Processing Zone, Free Port Zone, Free Trade Zone, and Technology Park will be discussed in next program of D-8 Working Group on Industry in Indonesia. This issue could fostering member countries to promote industrial development and investment within D-8, for example as what expected by Bangladesh. To attract both domestic and foreign investment in the three Export Processing Zone (EPZ), the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (BEPZA) will go for aggressive marketing this year. These EPZs are Mongl Khulna, Ishwardi in Pabna and Uttara in Nilphamari districts.

So far a total of $1.13 billion has been invested in eight EPZs in the country, according to BEPZA. Of this, $152.37 million was invested in the immediate past financial year, an increase of 35 percent over FY 2005-06's $112.89 million. Some 49 industrial organizations signed agreements worth $566 million with BEPZA during Fiscal Year of 2006-07. This investment will come into force in the current fiscal year.

The Secretary General of Developing-8 Organization, Dr Dipo Alam, in Istanbul was shocked by news saying Saudi Arabia plans to ban Indonesian airlines fly to Kingdom of  Saudi Arabia following the EU's ban on Indonesian flight to Euro Zone .

The Secretary General's concerns is how hundred of thousands of Indonesians who plan to fly Indonesian airlines to Umrah during Ramadan, and Hajj, as well as those Indonesian migrant workers who intend to fly back and forth from and to Saudi Arabia could be disadvantaged by this ban. The Secretary General doubts very much that Civil Aviation Authorities of Saudi Arabia will adopt serious measures against Indonesia in this regard and expressed his hopes that the problem would be addressed and resolved quickly through  bilateral channels.

Flight security is everybody's concerns, including developing countries. This is why D-8 Organization has established a new Working Group on Civil Aviation (WGCA) and on June 27-29, 2007, in Antalya, Turkey, all Director Generals of Civil Aviation of D-8 countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Turkey met and exchanged views on cooperation in flight and airport security, civil aviation trainings, as well as air transportation businesses and national carriers.

Dipo explains, in light of recent developements there seems to be a need for cooperation on civil aviation among Indonesia and D-8 member states for the smooth transfer of Indonesian passengers to Jeddah and Mecca . D-8 member states, such as Turkey with Turkish Airlines and Malaysia with their MAS are expected to cooperate and play their role to resolve this issue.

"Airlines routes within D-8 member states are now developing. These eight countries with almost 900 million people; recent economic growth in average more than five percent; and their intra-trade increased 130 percents for last five years, cooperation in civil aviation is a must," says Dipo. For example, as published in the official website of D-8, http://www.developing8.org, Turkish Airlines has asked the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan to allow her to operate seven flights a week from Karachi to Istanbul and back. Turkish Airlines recently announced that Karachi is not the only destination that they wish to head for. The airline is soon to start flights from another destination in Pakistan such as Islamabad , or Lahore. In addition this week Minister of Transportation of Turkey in Teheran plans to double Istanbul-Teheran flights to 14 times a week, and will also start open flights to Bangladesh . Around 20 million people fly with Turkish Airline and it is now becoming a competitor for the world's top-ranking airlines.

Therefore for the Saudi's plan to ban Indonesian Airlines, as well as challanges for developing countries for improving their civil aviation capacity, "D-8 Organization vows to strive for an elegance way to solve the problem through her cooperation schemes among the member states," added the Secretary General.

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