Islamic Development Bank (IDB)

Posted by Ripon Abu Hasnat on Friday, June 13, 2014 | 0 comments | Leave a comment...



The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is a multilateral development financing institution located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was founded in 1973 by the Finance Ministers at the first Organisation of the Islamic Conference (now called the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) with the support of the king of Saudi Arabia at the time (Faisal), and began its activities on 20 October 1975 There are 56 shareholding member states. Mohammed bin Faisal is the former president of the IsDB.
On the 22 May 2013, IDB tripled its authorized capital to $150 billion to better serve Muslims in member and non-member countries.[4]The Bank continues to receive the highest credit ratings of AAA by major rating agencies. Saudi Arabia holds about one quarter of the bank's paid up capitalThe IsDB is an observer at the United Nations General Assembly.

The present membership of the Bank consists of 56 countries. The basic condition for membership is that the prospective member country should be a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), pay its contribution to the capital of the Bank and be willing to accept such terms and conditions as may be decided upon by the IsDB Board of Governors.

Ranked on the basis of paid-up capital (as of August 2012) major shareholders include:
Saudi Arabia (26.5%)
Libya (10.7%)
Iran (9.32%)
Egypt (9.22%)
Turkey (8.41%)
United Arab Emirates (7.54%)
Kuwait (7.11%)
Pakistan (3.31%)
Algeria (3.31%)
Indonesia (2.93%)

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The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

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The North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA) is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral rules-based trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the U.S. and Canada.
NAFTA has two supplements: the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC).
In terms of combined purchasing power parity GDP of its members, as of 2007 the trade bloc is the largest in the world and second largest by nominal GDP comparison.

The goal of NAFTA was to eliminate barriers with trading and investment between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The implementation of NAFTA on January 1, 1994 brought the immediate elimination of tariffs on more than one-half of Mexico's exports to the U.S. and more than one-third of U.S. exports to Mexico. Within 10 years of the implementation of the agreement, all U.S.-Mexico tariffs would be eliminated except for some U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico that were to be phased out within 15 years. Most U.S.-Canada trade was already duty-free. NAFTA also seeks to eliminate non-tariff trade barriers and to protect the intellectual property right of the products.

Chapter 52 provides a procedure for the interstate resolution of disputes over the application and interpretation of NAFTA. It was modeled after Chapter 69 of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement.The roster of NAFTA adjudicators includes many retired judges, such as Alice Desjardins, John Maxwell Evans, Constance Hunt, John Richard, Arlin M. Adams, Susan Getzendanner, George C. Pratt, Charles B. Renfrew and Sandra Day O'Connor.

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The South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA)

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The South Asian Free Trade Area or SAFTA is an agreement reached on 6 January 2004 at the 12th SAARC summit in Islamabad, Pakistan. It created a free trade area of 1.6 billion people in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (as of 2011, the combined population is 1.8 billion people). The seven foreign ministers of the region signed a framework agreement on SAFTA to reduce customs duties of all traded goods to zero by the year 2016.

The SAFTA agreement came into force on 1 January 2006 and is operational following the ratification of the agreement by the seven governments. SAFTA requires the developing countries in South Asia (India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) to bring their duties down to 20 percent in the first phase of the two-year period ending in 2007. In the final five-year phase ending 2012, the 20 percent duty will be reduced to zero in a series of annual cuts. The least developed nations in South Asia (Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Maldives) have an additional three years to reduce tariffs to zero. India and Pakistan ratified the treaty in 2009, whereas Afghanistan as the 8th memberstate of the SAARC ratified the SAFTA protocol on the 4th of May 2011.

The basic principles underlying SAFTA are as under;
1. overall reciprocity and mutuality of advantagesso as to benefit equitably all Contracting States, taking into account their respective level of economic and industrial development, the pattern of their external trade, and trade and tariff policies and systems;
2. Negotiation of tariff reformstep by step, improved and extended in successive stages through periodic reviews;
3. Recognition of the special needs of the Least Developed Contracting States and agreement on concrete preferential measures in their favour;
4. Inclusion of all products, manufactures and commodities in their raw, semi-processed and processed forms.

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The European Development Fund (EDF)

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The European Development Fund (EDF) is the main instrument for European Union (EU) aid for development cooperation in Africa, the Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP Group) countries and the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT). Funding is provided by voluntary donations by EU member states.The EDF is subject to its own financial rules and procedures, and is managed by the European Commission (EC) and the European Investment Bank.

Articles 131 and 136 of the 1957 Treaty of Rome provided for its creation with a view to granting technical and financial assistance to African countries that were still colonised at that time and with which certain countries had historical links.
Usually lasting 6 years, each EDF lays out EU assistance to both individual countries and regions as a whole. The EU is on its 10th EDF from 2008-2013 with a budget of €22.7 billion.This represents about 30% of EU spending on development cooperation aid, with the remainder coming directly from the EU budget.

There is a debate on whether to 'budgetise' the EDF. However, in the Communication ‘A budget for Europe 2020’, the European Commission underlined that it was not appropriate at present time to propose that the EDF be integrated into the EU budget. The perceived advantages include:
1.    contributions would be based on GNI and this may increase the voluntary contributions the harmonization of EU budget and EDF administration might decrease administration costs and increase effectiveness of the aid
2.   20% of aid to the ACP countries already originates from the EU budget
3.   an all-ACP geographic strategy is no longer relevant as programmes are more localised to regions or country-level there would be increase democratic control and parliamentary scrutiny

The perceived disadvantages are that:
1.    90% of EDF resources reach low-income countries as opposed to less than 40% of aid from the EU budget development instruments
2.   a loss of aid predictability and aid quality as the EU budget is annual, unlike the 6-year budget of the EDF
3.   In 2005, the EU and its Member States agreed to achieve a collective level of ODA of 0.7% of GNI by 2015 and an interim target of 0.56% by 2010, with differentiated intermediate targets for those EU Member States which had recently joined the Union. On the 23rd of May 2011, EU ministers responsible for development cooperation gathered to take stock of progress made and concluded that additional efforts would be needed to close an estimated gap of €50 billion to reach the self-imposed collective EU target of 0.7% by 2015.

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The Latin American Integration Association (LAIA) or The Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA

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The Latin American Integration Association (LAIA) is an international and regional scope organization. It was created on 12 August 1980 by the 1980 Montevideo Treaty, replacing the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA / ALALC). Currently, it has 13 member countries, and any of the Latin American States may apply for accession.

The development of the integration process developed within the framework of the ALADI aims at promoting the harmonious and balanced socio-economic development of the region, and its long-term objective is the gradual and progressive establishment of a Latin-American Common Market.

The Basic Functions of LAFTA are:
1.    Promotion and regulation of reciprocal trade Economic complementation;
2.   Development of economic cooperation actions contributing to the markets extension.

The General Principles of LAFTA are:
1.    Pluralism in political and economic matters;
2.   Progressive convergence of partial actions for the establishment of a Latin-American Common Market;
3.   Flexibility;
4.   Differential treatments based on the development level of the member countries; and
5.   Multiple forms of trade agreements.

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