The OIC Economic Outlook 2013, which has been prepared by SESRIC, was launched during the Senior Officials Meeting of the 29th Session of COMCEC, which was convened on 18-21 November 2013 in Istanbul, Republic of Turkey. Main highlights of the Report are presented by Prof. Savaş Alpay during the meeting and the presentation attracted significant attention from the representatives of the participating member countries and international institutions.

In light of the recent global and regional economic developments, the OIC Economic Outlook analyses the trends in major economic indicators for the OIC member countries, as a group, during the latest five-year period (2008-2012). It investigates these trends in a comparative manner with their counterparts in the groups of the developed and other developing countries as well as with the world economy as a whole and highlights a number of constraints and challenges confronting the OIC member countries in their efforts to enhance their economic development and progress.

The OIC Economic Outlook 2013 highlights that with 22.6% of the world total population in 2012, the 57 OIC member countries produced only 11.3% of the world total GDP in terms of current USD and based on PPP. Moreover, the share of the OIC countries in the total GDP of the group of other developing countries has declined steadily during the period covered by the report to reach 22.6% in 2012 compared to 23.6% in 2007. The report also states that Unemployment remained one of the most serious problems facing the OIC countries. According to the latest available data during the period 2007-2011, the average unemployment rates in the OIC countries were significantly higher than the world average and the averages of the developed and other developing countries. During this period, total unemployment rate in OIC countries increased from a level of 9.4% in 2007 to 9.9% in 2011.

According to the Report, total merchandise exports of the OIC countries in 2012reached to its historically highest level of $2.2 trillion and surpassed the pre-crisis peak of $1.9 trillion in 2008. This has been resulted in a slight increase in their share in total world exports, which has been recorded at 12.5% in 2012 compared to the pre-crisis level of 11.9% in 2008 and the level of 12.1% in 2011. Unlike the trade in goods, the volume of trade in services remained significantly lower in the OIC countries and even demonstrated a falling trend since 2008. The report also indicates that the share of intra-OIC trade in the total trade of OIC countries showed an increasing trend during the period 2007-2012. Intra-OIC trade accounted for 18% of total OIC trade in 2012; the highest level it reached so far.

As a major observation throughout the analysis in the report, it has been observed that the overall performance of the group of the OIC countries is still highly influenced by the performance of a few member countries. For example, in 2012, only 10 member countries produced or generated 72.9% of the total OIC countries output (GDP). Almost the same 10 countries accounted for 76.6% of the total merchandise exports, and, similarly, only 10 member countries accounted for more than 72% of the total FDI flows to all OIC countries in the same year.

Finally, this year’s report also includes a special section which highlights an important issue of concern to our member countries, namely private sector participation in infrastructure investment in OIC countries.

OIC Economic Outlook 2013 (English) (Arabic) (French)