KARACHI, March 27: The chairman of Research Institute of Islamic Banking, Dr Shahid Hasan Siddiqui, has called upon Muslim states to improve their GDP and invest their resources within Muslim world.

He was speaking at a seminar on “Economic problems and Islamic guidance”, organized by the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association.

“We have to be united and must establish Islamic Monetary Fund followed by proposition to introduce a joint currency and a common market of Muslim countries,” the senior economist suggested.

Mentioning that the total debts of Muslim world stand at US$882 billion, he said Muslims were largely responsible for their plight as around US$1100 billion of Muslim countries were in the banks of western countries.

“The total debt of Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey and Malaysia is around US$346 billion hence exposed to frequent decline in their currency rates,” Dr Shahid said and regretted that Muslim countries also happened to be at the bottom in human development index and on the top in corruption.

In context of Pakistan, he said that it ranked 142nd in the human development index. However, its financial condition improved after 9/11 as consequently aids and grants started pouring in. Unfortunately, he said that national economy was estimated to be exposed to an annual loss of Rs600 billion due to corruption and luxuries.

Dr Siddiqui stressed that the government should devise policies that could register meaningful improvement in economy and the country could cope with the future challenges.

Reiterating that Muslim countries should invest their financial resources for the welfare of their own people and take out their invested money from the western institutions, he claimed that Pakistanis had no less than US$30 billion in western countries alone.

According to him, nations have to emerge as strong and active partners in combating terrorism. However, he regretted that lack of due realization on part of Muslims had exposed them to a situation where they had emerged as the victims of financial terrorism. “Muslim countries produce 50 per cent oil of the world and import 40 per cent of the extremely essential commodity yet they are heavily indebted to international monetary institutions,” he said.

Among other health care experts, Dr Azhar Ahmed, Dr Anis Ahmed, Prof Khan Shah Azam, Dr Sohail Akhter and Dr Shahzaman also spoke on the occasion.