The leaders of eight Muslim developing nations with a combined population of 800 million vowed today to take up the challenges of globalisation and join forces to face the developed states of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Two of those leaders, host Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikha Hasina Wajed, called for a fair distribution of the wealth generated by globalisation and trade development at the D-8 summit.
"A truly globalised world has to be based on give and take and a better understanding of the mutuality of interests" between developed countries and developing ones, said the outgoing president of the grouping, Sheikha Hasina.
"We want a win-win outcome of the fruits of globalisation", she said at the Cairo gathering.
Egypt's Economy Minister Yousef Boutros Ghali meanwhile said the D-8 (D for development) had decided to "negotiate as a bloc with developed countries during the next meeting of World Trade Organisation economy ministers".
The meeting is due to take place in Qatar in November.
Boutros Ghali told reporters on the sidelines of the summit that the D-8 economy ministers would meet before the WTO gathering to forge a common position.
Spanning Africa, Asia and Europe, the group comprises Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.
Mubarak, whose country is hosting the summit of the group created in 1997, warned that globalisation could marginalise developing countries, and called on the international community to address that issue.
He urged D-8 countries to "focus on three challenges: poverty, trade and financial problems ... in an attempt to strike a new balance in the world order and include developing countries in it".
Mubarak later announced the summit's Cairo Declaration, which pledged to double the volume of trade among the eight over the next five years from 3.5 per cent of their total foreign trade to 7 per cent.
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