Dr. Bandar Al Hajjar, the President of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), will arrive in Dushanbe on September 12 on a three-day visit, according to the Tajik MFA information department.
While in Dushanbe, Dr. Bandar Al Hajjar Bandar is expected to hold talks with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and senior representatives of the country’s economic bloc ministries.
Al Hajjar began his career as the vice president of the Islamic Economy Center. He later became the vice dean of administration and economics faculty at King Saud University. His tenure lasted from 1982 to 1984. He was also a lecturer at King Abdulaziz University from 1989 to 2005. He served as a member of the Shoura Council beginning in 1997. Later he became the chair of the council's committee on foreign affair. Then he was appointed deputy chairman of the National Society for Human Rights in 2004. He was the president of the National Society for Human Rights from 2005 to October 2008. He became vice president of the Shoura Council on 25 October 2008.
On December 13, 2011, he was appointed minister of Hajj, replacing Fuad bin Abdulsalam Farsi in the post.
Hajjar was announced as the next president of Islamic Development Bank and the 41st annual session of the Board of Governors of IDB, held in Jakarta between May 14–19, was set to ratify the Kingdom’s nomination of Hajjar as the new president of the Bank. He took the helm on October 1, 2016.
The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) is a multilateral development financing institution located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was founded in 1973 by the Finance Ministers at the first Organization of the Islamic Conference (now called the Organization of Islamic Cooperation) with the support of the king of Saudi Arabia at the time (Faisal), and began its activities on October 20, 1975. There are 56 shareholding member states.
The largest share of the active IsDB portfolio is energy, transportation and water supply development — some 60 percent.
Tajikistan joined the Islamic Development Bank in 1996. Since that time, Tajikistan has received some 400 million U.S. dollars in loans and technical assistance from the Bank. One of the largest of IsDB-supported projects in Tajikistan is construction of the roads Shohon-Zighar and Zighar-Yoged in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO). Tajikistan now owes about 112 million U.S. dollars to the Islamic Development Bank.
