Turkey is set to attract more foreign investments thanks to its reforms and landmark projects, the secretary-general of the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation has said.

Dato Ku Jaafar Ku Shaari praised Turkey’s fresh reforms announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier this month to protect the value of the local currency and attract foreign investors.

“And I think, the honorable president is very much aware that new reform packages and amendments in different fields such as economy, law and democracy need to be made by the Republic of Turkey to adapt to the new developments, and in order to take a key position and play a critical role on the economic and diplomatic level among the developed countries in the New World Order,” Shaari told Anadolu Agency (AA) Thursday.

He said Turkey’s impressive growth and structural reforms over the past years have propelled it to become one of the most popular foreign direct investment (FDI) destinations of 2019 in Europe, and the trend will continue in the coming years.

Erdoğan outlined a series of measures that he said would lift the country’s economy. Under the package, the government will focus on efforts to reform the economy, bring down inflation and tighten state finances as well as increasing the country’s potential growth through productivity driven by investment, employment and exports.

Global finance hub

Touching upon the landmark Istanbul Finance Center (IFC) project, Shaari said it will establish Istanbul as the global center for Islamic finance.

“The project will be launched in early 2022,” he said.

Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum earlier this month said the construction was 66% completed as he vowed the center would be opened on time. Some 8,000 people are currently working on the site.

The IFC project, which started in 2009 and is being developed in Istanbul’s Ataşehir district, has been designed to be one of the world’s major financial centers.

The landmark government project aims to build a larger financial center than the existing ones in New York, London and Dubai, and also aims to make Istanbul the center of finance internationally.

Recalling that Turkey aims to increase the participation banking’s (Islamic banking) share to 15% by 2025 from 6%, Shaari said the center will provide opportunities for Turkey in the Islamic finance area.

D-8 projects

Touching on the global economic lull due to the pandemic measures, he said that the D-8 is about to start a project with the Islamic Development Bank to revitalize regional cooperation and trade within member states.

“We can establish a special industrial or economic zone, we want to develop socio-economic cooperation amongst member states, we want to diversify and create new opportunities in trade relations, we want to improve developing countries’ position in the world economy,” he added.

On June 15, 1997, the D-8 was launched after then-Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan proposed the creation of an economic group consisting of eight emerging economies from the Muslim world.

Alongside Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan created an organization based in Istanbul.

The group has an annual trade volume of $1.6 trillion (TL 12 trillion), representing 4.5% of global trade and 5% of the global gross domestic product (GDP).