KUALA LUMPUR, June 19: Finance ministers and business leaders from the Muslim world will meet in the Malaysian capital this week to devise ways to lift their countries out of poverty by unleashing their untapped economic potential.

Malaysia is leading the charge for a focus on the economy as a means to bring development and prosperity to troubled Muslim-majority nations, and drain support for radicalism and conflict.

The Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur will play host to a range of meetings on the Islamic finance and information technology sectors, including a major trade forum for the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

The annual meeting of the board of governors of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the OIC’s investment arm, will be the centrepiece of the week’s program.

The governors, mostly finance and economic ministers, are expected to approve a 10-year global master plan to help their countries develop their Islamic financial services sectors when they meet on Thursday and Friday.

They will also launch a trade financing body with capital of 3.0 billion dollars to encourage trade development among members.

Halipah Esa, coordinator of the IDB meeting and deputy secretary general of Malaysia’s finance ministry, said delegates will focus on how to convert the wealth of resources held by OIC nations into better living standards.

“We are trying to fill up stomachs. People must have food on the table, clothing and money for children to be educated,” Halipah told AFP.

“If you look at the world, it associates Islam with poverty and backwardness and terrorism, but we want to showcase Malaysia as a progressive nation. Being a Muslim means you can still progress,” she said.

Muslim leaders are increasingly acknowledging the need to tackle poverty as a means of stemming terrorist networks and addressing festering security issues.

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf said during a visit to Canberra last week that greater Australian investment in his country would help ease the poverty that drives people into militant groups.

Malaysia, the current chair of the OIC, has been pushing for closer economic integration in the grouping and for nations to develop their Islamic finance sectors as a way of strengthening their economies.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is expected to urge the grouping, which has been accused of being too disparate in its views, to refocus its efforts away from politics and towards social and economic development.

Malaysia, the first nation to launch Islamic bonds, hopes to help other Muslim nations — particularly those from the Middle East — launch financial instruments based on Sharia laws.

Although Muslims make up 15 per cent of the world’s population and OIC members possess 60 per cent of global natural resources, trade between them only accounts for seven per cent of the global total, according to Malaysian officials.—AFP