The 4th Meeting of the OIC Member States' Stock Exchanges Forum convened on 2-3 October 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey. The Meeting was hosted by the Istanbul Stock Exchange and attended by the representatives of 13 stock exchanges, 6 central depositories, clearing and registry institutions and 10 related organisations and institutions, including the SESRIC. Mr. Atilla Karaman, Reseacher, represented the Centre thereat.

In his speech at the opening session, Mr. Hüseyin Erkan, Chairman of the Forum and Chairman-CEO of the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), reminded the participants that the current state of the financial industry and fast changing world requires a close partnership of countries, while the growing interest in Islamic finance presents many challenges, therefore making cooperation even more important in order to achieve mutual benefits. Mr. Erkan went on to say that as a result of the extensive work of the task forces, a remarkable progress has been made in many areas of cooperation since the establishment of the Forum in 2005, and expressed his gratitude for this hard work. Mr. Erkan said that the Forum has worked on many projects so far and shall go over this work during the two-day Meeting.

H.E. Ambassador Hameed A. Opeloyeru, Assistant Secretary General (Economic Affairs) of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) read the Message of H.E. Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of the OIC to the Meeting. In his Message, Prof. Ihsanoglu thanked the ISE for hosting the Forum and the participants for their commitment to the overall objectives of fostering active economic cooperation among OIC Member States. Prof. Ihsanoglu stated in his message that the capital markets in OIC Member States, particularly the Sharī`ah-compliant instruments have continued to grow along with increased awareness. Prof. Ihsanoglu went on to say that despite being considered as 'emerging', the share of the stock exchanges of the OIC Member Countries within the world's total market capitalisation increased three-fold in the last seven years according to the World Bank reports. Prof. Ihsanoglu also noted that the rising popularity of Islamic sukuks, with a global issuance amount of 120 billion USD and stated that the Forum needs to proceed rapidly to promoting cooperation for the purpose of sharing best practices, capacity building, regulatory frameworks and also pooling resources to address the issue of stability and liquidity for the Islamic capital instruments. Prof. Ihsanoglu assured the Forum of the OIC General Secretariat's intention to give adequate visibility to the outcome of the Forum's deliberations in a timely fashion, which will in turn ensure the involvement of the decision makers for the popularisation of the Islamic capital markets in their respective countries.

Mr. Ahmet Yaman, Deputy Undersecretary of the State Planning Organisation of Turkey, thanked the ISE for hosting the meeting and gave brief information about the Istanbul International Financial Centre (IIFC). He said that a very important item for the IIFC porject is the development of Islamic financial products for which the Forum provides significant support.

As to the working sessions of the Meeting, Mr. Hüseyin Erkan delivered a presentation on the background of the Forum and the tasks accomplished since the 3rd Forum Meeting convened in October 2009. The participants presented the reports of the relevant Task Forces of the Forum, and international organisations including Progress on Creation of OIC Indices, Progress on Islamic Repo, Branding and Promoting Islamic Capital Markets and Raising Awareness for the OIC Markets, Islamic Corporate Social Responsibility, and OIC Capital Markets Interlinking.

A set of proposals, recommendations and decisions have been made at the end of the Meeting related to the future work and activities of the various Task Forces of the Forum and other related administrative and organisational matters.

The Report of the Forum, including the adopted recommendations and decisions, will be submitted to the 26th Session of the COMCEC, which will be held in Istanbul on 5-8 October 2010. The 5th Meeting of the Forum will be held in Istanbul in October 2011.

For more information, visit the website of the Forum: http://www.oicexchanges.org