Secretary General Introduced D-8 Organization to the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), Planning to set Some Cooperation

Vienna, Austria | February 02, 2008 by D-8 Secretariat

Assigned by D-8 Head of States in the 5th Bali Summit in Bali, Indonesia, May 2006, that D-8 Organization should cooperate to some international organizations — as also before in some meetings in Geneva with UNCTAD, ITC, WTO, WIPO in May 2007, and in Jeddah with President of Islamic Development Bank and Secretary General of OIC in June 2007, Secretary General Dr. Dipo Alam on January 21, 2008, visited the Director General of OFID Mr. Suleiman Jasir Al-Herbish, in Vienna, Austria.

To Dr. Alam, OFID is an important organization that D-8 need to cooperate since the objectives of OFID — an organization of OPEC with 12 member states which are three of them are also member of D-8, namely Indonesia, Iran and Nigeria — to promote South-South solidarity and providing strategic financial assistances for developing countries is relevant to the objectives of D-8.

OFID has the following objectives: (i) Extending concessionary financial assistance in the form of loans for development projects and programs and for balance of payments supports; (ii) Participating in the financing of private sector enterprises located in developing countries; (iii) Supporting developing countries’ trade with lines of credit and guarantees; (iv) Providing grants in support of technical assistance, food aid, research and similar activities; and humanitarian emergency relief (OFID assisted after tsunami disaster in Indonesia, and lately USD 500,000 grants for assisted Bangladesh because of the cyclone); and (vi) Contributing to the resources of other development institutions whose work benefits developing countries. OFID also act as an agent on behalf of OPEC member countries in their relations with other international financial institutions.

Since OFID has been established in January 28, 1976, up to December 2007, total approved operations were 2.224 consist of: public sector loans 1,164; private sector operations 111; trade finance operations 12; and grants 937. Member of beneficiary countries were: Africa 50, Asia 40, Latin America and Caribbean 27, and Europe 4, in total 121 countries. Total money disbursed was USD 5,898 millions which USD 732 millions disbursed to International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) that D-8 also intends to cooperate with IFAD.

The meeting in Vienna at the OFID Headquarter, between D-8 Secretary General and OFID Director General was very good and some understandings of the objectives and potential cooperation in the future were discussed fruitfully. The cooperation could be directly between D-8 and OFID and/or through the third agencies of international organizations or governments.

D-8 Secretary General expects the opportunity to cooperate with OFID will soon be implemented having member states proposed some ideas and proposal to cooperate. This will be reported by the Secretary General in the next meeting among D-8 Commissioners, in Jakarta March 2008, when discussing D-8 Roadmap 2008-2018.

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