THE ROLE OF THE COMCEC IN INCREASING INTRA-OIC TRADE

The COMCEC was established in 1981 and became operational in 1984. Trade is one of the major

cooperation areas, identified with the objective of enhancing trade among the OIC Member

States. The COMCEC has initiated many programs and projects towards reaching this objective.

The Fourth Extra-ordinary Islamic Summit Conference held on August 14-15, 2012 adopted the

COMCEC Strategy. The Strategy defines six cooperation areas and trade is one of them.

Enhancing Mobility, Strengthening Solidarity and Improving Governance are the three

principles of the Strategy.

The Strategy defines the strategic objective of cooperation in

the area of trade as “Expansion of Trade among the Member

States”. In order to reach the strategic objective, the Strategy

defines four output areas, namely trade liberalization, trade

facilitation, trade financing and trade promotion. For each

output areas, the Strategy defines the COMCEC’s role as well

as the expected outcomes. As it was discussed earlier, many

OIC Member States face obstacles in the output areas defined in the Strategy. Through the new

implementation instruments, the Strategy aims at contributing to the improvement of the

current situation towards increasing intra-OIC trade. To reach these objectives, the Strategy

brings two new well defined implementation instruments, namely Trade Working Group and

the COMCEC Project Funding Mechanism.

Trade Working Group convenes regularly twice in Ankara on different specific themes that

possess crucial importance for the Member Countries. Main objective of the Trade Working

Group meetings are; producing and disseminating knowledge, sharing experience and good

practices among the Member Countries. The Working Group also aims to serve as an effective

intermediary for creating a common understanding and approximating policies among the

Member Countries to respond to their common development problems. To enrich discussions

during the Working Group Meetings, analytical studies on the theme of the respective meetings

and Sectoral Outlook report are prepared by the CCO and conveyed to the Member Countries at

least one month prior to each meeting. As of October 2017, nine rounds of Working Group

Meetings were successfully organized.

Trade Liberalization:

As many international organizations, COMCEC has initiated a RTA, called Trade Preferential

System among the OIC Member States (TPS-OIC). TPS-OIC is based on three agreements, namely

the Framework Agreement, the Protocol on Preferential Tariff Scheme (PRETAS) and the Rules

of Origin.

The Framework Agreement, which sets out the general rules and principles for the negotiations

toward the establishment of the TPS-OIC, entered into force in 2002 after reaching 10

ratifications. Following the entering into force, the COMCEC Coordination Office organized First

Round of Trade Negotiations to develop a more specific agreement laying out the concrete

reduction rates in tariffs in accordance with a time-table for implementation. After four

meetings, the Member States agreed on the PRETAS. After the finalization of the PRETAS, the

Trade Negotiating Committee, which is the responsible body for the TPS-OIC conducted another

round of negotiations for finalizing the Rules of Origin. The round of negotiations closed

successfully after the finalization of the deliberations on the Rules of Origin in 2007. The PRETAS

“COMCEC Strategy

gives special emphasis

to improving trade

environment”