DUSHANBE, October 6, 2011, Asia-Plus – On Wednesday October 5, Sharif Said, Chairman of Tajikistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) met here with Mohammad Reza Karbasi, Secretary-General of the Economic Cooperation Organization Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ECO-CCI) and Dr A. Fahari (phonetically spelled), Member of the Board of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI).
According to the CCI press center, opening of the branch of the Association of Health Tourism (ICHTA) and the halal food production network in Tajikistan was a major topic of the meeting.
The ECO-CCI secretary-general reportedly highly appraised activities of Tajikistan’s CCI in establishing bilateral ties with ECO-CCI and ICCI and stressed that those activities would promote expansion of mutually beneficial economic and cultural cooperation.
He noted that ECO was interested in participating in construction of transport infrastructure in Tajikistan and establishing direct air communications between all the ECO member nations. Mr. Karbasi also informed of their intention to open the branch of the Heath Tourism Association (ICHTA) in Tajikistan.
Dr Fahari, for his part, informed Sharif Said of their plans to open the halal food production network in Tajikistan.
Halal (Arabic: “lawful”) is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law (Sharia). The opposite of this word is haaram.
According specialists’ estimates, the global halal production turnover is now estimated at nearly 150 billion U.S. dollars per year.
At the end of the meeting, Mr. Karbasi invited Sharif Said to attend the 2nd Health Tourism in Islamic Countries Conference that will take place in Mashhad, Iran from December 19-20 this year.
ECO-CCI was founded by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines, and Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, in 1990, in order to promote commercial, industrial and economic cooperation among member states. Today, ECO-CCI has 10 members. Apart from the above mentioned members the other 7 members respectively are the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan , Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Under the auspices of ECO, ECO-CCI aims at creating common policies and delivering suggestions; paying effort to increase the contacts among members; and sharing experience and information among member chambers’ countries.
The Islamic Chamber is an affiliated organ of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and represents the private sector of 57 member countries. The Seventh Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers held in May 1976 in Istanbul, Turkey put forward the idea to establish the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The idea was approved by the First Conference of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry held in October 1977 in Istanbul, after which its Constitution was adopted by the Second Conference of Chambers of Commerce and Industry held in December 1978 in Karachi, Pakistan.
ICCI aims at strengthening closer collaboration in the field of trade, commerce, information technology, insurance/reinsurance, shipping, banking, promotion of investment opportunities and joint ventures in the member countries. Its membership is comprised of the National Chambers/Unions/Federations of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the member countries.
