SMIIC Secretary General, Mr. İhsan ÖVÜT and his accompanying General Secretariat delegation attended the 40th Session of OIC Islamic Commission for Economic, Cultural and Social Affairs (ICECS) which was held on 25-27 April 2017, 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 as well as welcomed the joining of new Member States which has increased the number of SMIIC Member States to 33 along with 3 Observers, the establishment of SMIIC Information System (IS), the signing of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with International Trade Center (ITC), African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) and Arab Industrial Development and Mining Organization (AIDMO) 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 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 5th OIC Halal Expo and Istanbul 2017 World Halal Summit to be held under the auspices of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey on 23-25 November 2017, Istanbul which is organized in coordination with SMIIC General Secretariat and ICDT.

The draft resolutions that were adopted at the meeting will be submitted to the 44th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) which will be held on 10-11 July 2017 in Abidjan, Republic of Cote d'Ivoire.