The Commission, having met in Cairo on 6-7 June 2002, adopted the following decisions and recommendations:

TRADE
1.Appreciates the work done by the consultant firm - FINBI- in preparing the final version of the feasibility study on the establishment of the International Marketing and Trading Company (IMTC) in the light of comments offered by the member countries after the Cairo Summit.
2. Decides to convene a meeting for the prospective partners or potential shareholders to be hosted by the Egyptian Federation of the Chambers of Commerce, early September 2002, to consider the terms and modalities of the establishment of the IMTC. The Egyptian government will later announce the exact date of the meeting.
3. The next Commission will consider the recommendations of the said meeting prior to submitting the final report to the next Council of ministers for adoption, with the ultimate objective of launching the IMTC in the Fourth summit of Heads of State and Government.
4. Reaffirms the already agreed principle that the company would become private sector driven based on the objectives of the D-8.
5. Invites the member governments to encourage through their national chambers and business associations, the firms and businessmen operating in their country to participate in the said company and to subscribe to its capital.
6. Calls upon the D-8 Business Forum and its executive committee to also stimulate the interest of D-8 firms and businessmen in the activities of the IMTC and to encourage them to join the company.
7. Also invites the member governments to subscribe to the capital of the company, be it in a modest amount in accordance with the principles of public-private partnership, to give a clear signal to the private sector that they strongly support this project.
8. Reaffirms the importance the Commission attaches to the establishment of a shipping framework for a constructive dialogue among the business circles, shipping companies, ship owners associations, and invites the government of Bangladesh to set a date to convene the working group meeting on shipping to consider this matter.
9. Invites the member governments to feed and update the trade database regularly with trade information, including trade exhibitions, for the common interest of the entire membership, as requested at the Cairo Summit, and recommends to incorporate the trade data base, which will be administered by Egypt, into the ITDB website; and requests the Executive Director to follow up the implementation of this decision.
10. Invites Egypt as the coordinating country, to convene the first meeting of the officials of D-8 Central Banks/Ministries of Finance to discuss trade-related banking measures amongst the member countries. It is recommended that advantage could be taken of the presence of the Central bank governors of the member countries in Washington, D.C. to attend the World Bank/IMF meetings to convene the above mentioned meeting.
11. Appreciates the efforts of the government of Malaysia in convening the first expert group meeting on Trade Preferences, Customs Procedures and Trade Barriers from 21-23 May 2002. Encourages the expert group to follow up on the recommendations contained in the report, in the upcoming meeting to be held in the I.R. Iran.
12. Invites the members who have not yet done so, to sign and accelerate their procedures of the ratification of the Agreement on the Simplification of Visa Procedures for D-8 Businessmen so that the Agreement would enter into force as soon as possible.
13. Endorses the report of the Workshop on SMEs jointly organized by the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce and the Small and Medium Industry Development Organization (SMIDO) of Turkey in Istanbul on 2-4 October 2001.
14. Welcomes the offer of SMEDA of Pakistan to set up a forum on the internet under its website to achieve continuous exchange of information among the members in this field. The Commission endorses the proposal to organize a workshop on data collection, classification system and management of SMEs and ideas such as convening an expert group meeting on Joint D-8 Venture Programs and setting up subcontracting exchange offices through the assistance of UNIDO.
15. Invites Indonesia, as the next Chair, to consider convening a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Business Forum before the second meeting of the Business Forum to take place alongside the Fourth D-8 Summit to be held in Jakarta 2003.

INDUSTRY
16. Appreciates the work done and the financial support given by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) to manufacture the prototype of the agricultural aircraft and to successfully conduct its test flights. The Commission invites the member countries to respond, by the next session of the Commission, to the letter of the Commissioner of Turkey circulated on 15 December 2000, and to the Iranian proposal made at the Tenth Session of the Commission to establish a consortium for initiating commercial production of the aircraft so that a definitive decision could be taken on the future of this project in the light of the directive given by the Heads of State and Government at the Cairo Summit, thus avoiding unnecessarily prolonging existing uncertainties on this matter
17. Recognizes the importance of expanding cooperation in various fields of industry and urges member countries to propose new projects to meet this objective.

TELECOMMUNICATION & INFORMATION AND SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
18. Appreciates the work done and the financial support given by I.R. Iran to establish and administer the ITDB network, and reiterates its earlier call to the member countries to regularly feed and update their national home pages in this network.
19. Requests the coordinating country - I.R. Iran - to pursue the finalization of the feasibility study done by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for setting up a cyber mall for e-commerce, including the need for a dedicated server, in the light of the comments by the member countries on the pre-feasibility study. The Commission also, requests I.R. Iran, in cooperation with, the ITU to provide a demo (Pilot Project) of the cyber mall, once the feasibility study is completed.

AGRICULTURE
20. Endorses the recommendations of the report of the Workshop on Organic/Alternate Fertilizer, which was held in Islamabad on 19-20 June 2001.
21. Welcomes the convening of the workshop on Conservation of Farm Animal Genetic Resources on 1-3 August 2002 in Pakistan, and the workshop on Biotechnology Initiative for Increasing Agricultural Productivity, to be organized by Pakistan before the end of this year.
22. Appreciates the Training Program on Residue Monitoring Systems and Hygiene Rules & Quality Control Procedures for Fish Packaging, organized by the Government of Turkey in Bodrum on 26-29 March 2002; and recommends the member countries to exchange information and experience in aquaculture technology and infrastructure, and to encourage as well private sector companies to collaborate in the breeding and trade of sea products.

FINANCE-BANKING-PRIVATIZATION
23. Appreciates the efforts by the Government of Malaysia in convening the Training Program on Privatization on 20-25 August 2001, which has been very informative for the participants. The Commission welcomes the offer of Malaysia to convene another Training Program on Privatization to be held in 2003.
24. Appreciates the efforts by Malaysia in promoting takaful, retakaful (insurance and reinsurance) and Islamic Banking initiatives among member countries. The Commission welcomes the training programs and activities on takaful and retakaful to be organized by Malaysia for the period 2002 - 2004.
25. Invites Malaysia to organize a meeting of competent authorities, as suggested by I.R. Iran, to discuss takaful and retakaful, and the Egyptian proposal entitled “Cooperation among the D-8 for the Development of Insurance and Takaful Business in the Wake of Globalization”, as well as the Malaysian proposal on the modalities of establishing a mechanism of cooperation in the field of insurance.

HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT - POVERTY ALLEVIATION
26. Endorses the report of the Workshop on the Empowerment of Rural Community through the Use of Appropriate Technology for Poverty Alleviation, which was organized by the Government of Indonesia on 5-9 November 2001.
27. Recommends the member countries to continue to work together to find ways and means in order to develop appropriate technologies, and to this end to exchange experiences and best practices, including in micro-financing, among them through the D-8 web-site.
28. Recommends the members to utilize community-based technologies that are simple and low cost; to ensure participation of rural community in the planning, designing and implementation of schemes to alleviate poverty; to encourage the involvement of the private sector in the development of appropriate technology and in efforts to empower rural community; to increase cooperation among the D-8 member countries in information and communication technologies related to poverty alleviation and to this end closer collaboration among the coordinators.
29. Recommends the member countries to continue exchange of experiences in Human Resources Development and Poverty Alleviation by conducting 2 workshops as follows:
• Proposal by I.R. Iran to hold a workshop on “Poverty Alleviation: Reforms and Development Measures” to be held in the fall of 2002.
• Proposal by Indonesia to hold a workshop in 2003 on Food Safety for poverty alleviation.
The Commission invites the member states to provide relevant information in the D-8 website.
30. Welcomes the proposal by I.R. Iran to convene a meeting of the officials responsible for poverty alleviation programs, to initiate cooperation among member countries in this end.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT
31. Invites members to engage actively in a constructive dialogue through the D-8 website to promote with a view to promoting common perspectives on rural industrialization. Further invites Bangladesh as the coordinating country and Egypt as the author of the project “Promoting Rural Industrialization by Comprehensive Approach”, in cooperation with interested members to initiate the implementation of this project. To this end, the Commission also requests the Executive Director to approach UNIDO and other relevant international agencies and donors for assistance.
32. Appreciates the efforts of the Government of Bangladesh for convening the Workshop on “Sharing Experience and Formulation of Future Strategy for Rural Development” on 5-7 March 2002 and endorses the recommendations made.
33. Appreciates the briefing of the Turkish Commissioner on the pilot project called ” Villages Turned Towns” and welcomes the Turkish proposal to organize a seminar and a study tour to share the experience on this project.

ENERGY
34. Appreciates the efforts by the Nigerian government in convening the Working Group Meeting on Energy, which was held on 3-5 April 2001 and endorses the recommendations made.
35. Invites the interested member countries to take the necessary steps with the view of initiating the projects identified in the report.
36. Stresses the importance of information exchange in the field of energy and strongly recommends that a program for the exchange of information on the members’ expertise in the field of energy to be established with a view to enhancing capacity-building and feeding the D-8 website with this information. Also takes note of the recommendations for the establishment of an International Energy Institute for Manpower Development, and to give their views thereupon till the next session of the Commission so that it may examine them, and accordingly report to the Council of Ministers

ENVIRONMENT:
37. Appreciates the efforts by the I.R Iran in organizing the Working Group Meeting on Technical Aspects of Environmental Cooperation which was organized by the government of the I.R. Iran on 14-15 November 2001 and endorses the report of the said meeting.
38.Invites the members to make appropriate proposals and to take the necessary steps for the implementation of various recommendations formulated by the experts, such as organizing workshops on identification of existing environmentally sound technologies in member countries and developing mechanisms for their transfer upon the request of interested member countries; designing funding and implementing joint projects on various environmental issues faced by the member countries; establishing an environmental network through the ITDB web-site and developing and monitoring system to determine and manage the environment pollution under the coordination of I.R. Iran’s Department of Environment.
39. Welcomes the proposal by Egypt to organize the next Expert Group Meeting on Environment on 15-16 December 2002 as well as the Seminar on “Agricultural Solid Waste Management” on 17 December 2002.

QUESTION OF LIAISON WITH THE OTHER INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
40. Authorizes the Executive Director, in line with paragraph 3 and 9 of the Istanbul Declaration and paragraph 30 of the Cairo Declaration to pursue and initiate liaison, consistent with the priority interests of the Group, with the relevant international and regional organizations such as, the IDB, UN, UNDP, FAO, UNIDO, WTO and OIC, bearing in mind that this constitutes the first step to include more organizations as required. Also requests the executive director to report about his contacts to the next session of the Commission.

STATUS OF THE FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND THE BUDGET PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR 2001
41. Takes note of the status of financial contributions by the members and the budget performance submitted by the Coordinating Unit for the year 2001.
42. Calls upon the member governments to make their payments for the year 2002, together with the unfulfilled contributions for the last year, towards the expenses of the Coordinating Unit under the existing arrangements agreed upon.

DATES AND VENUE OF THE NEXT SESSIONS OF THE COUNCIL AND THE COMMISSION
43. Recommends that the VI. Session of the Council be held in New York alongside the 57th session of the UNGA, and accordingly would hold the next session of the Commission also in New York to precede the Council meeting, the dates of both of which to be fixed by the Chair Country in consultation with the member states.