SMIIC Secretary General, Mr. İhsan ÖVÜT and his accompanying General Secretariat delegation attended the 41st Session of OIC Islamic Commission for Economic, Cultural and Social Affairs (ICECS) which was held on 13-15 March 2018, in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Session was attended by the representatives of the OIC Member States and OIC institutions.

The Commission started its proceedings as the Islamic Commission for Economic, Cultural and Social Affairs through reviewing and discussing a long list of agenda items on various economic, culture and social issues of cooperation among the Member States.

The Commission commended the activities of SMIIC in the area of standardization, metrology, accreditation and their impact on trade facilitation, trade promotion and capacity building as well as welcomed the joining of new Member States which has increased the number of SMIIC Member States to 35 along with 3 Observers, the amendment of SMIIC Internal Regulations at the 11th SMIIC General Assembly Meeting on 07 May 2017 in İstanbul, Republic of Turkey which will keep SMIIC up to date with the current international implementations on standardization, metrology and accreditation and shape the SMIIC's future activities with a clear, transparent, efficient and Member States’ driven approach and totally in line with the Charter of OIC, the signing of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with GCC Standardization Organization (GSO) and acknowledged the role of SMIIC for the achievement of goals defined in the OIC - 2025 Programme of Action to promote trade exchanges among the OIC Member States, increase production and competitiveness of products as well as to increase intra OIC trade.

The Commission expressed its appreciation to SMIIC for co-organizing the 5th OIC Halal Expo as well as the World Halal Summit on 23-25 November 2017 under the auspices of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey in coordination with Islamic Centre for Development of Trade (ICDT).

The Commission also invited OIC Member States to adopt and use the OIC/SMIIC Standards as their national standards, requested the Member States to engage in close cooperation with SMIIC and OIC Institutions in order to improve the quality infrastructure systems of the OIC Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as well as invited the Member States to participate in the 6th OIC Halal Expo and Istanbul 2017 World Halal Summit to be held under the auspices of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey on 29 November-02 December 2018, Istanbul which will be organized in coordination with SMIIC General Secretariat and Islamic Centre for Development of Trade (ICDT).

The draft resolutions that were adopted at the meeting will be submitted to the 45th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) which will be held on 05-06 May 2018 in Dhaka, People’s Republic Bangladesh.