COMCEC Trade Outlook 2019
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6. 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”