Jeddah : The volume of trade in services in the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) accounted for 24 percent of the world trade, worth more than $822 billion.

A report by the Islamic Centre for Development of Trade (ICDT), an OIC affiliated organ, for 2016-2017 revealed that the structure of services trade in the Islamic countries consists of seven main sectors: transport services (32.6 percent); travel and tourism (32.4 percent); construction (3 percent), telecommunications and information services (5 percent); financial services (2 percent); insurance (1.5 percent); and culture and entertainment services (3 percent).

The active member countries in the service trade are Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Turkey, Indonesia, Qatar, Egypt and Kuwait, the report said, adding that these countries collectively recorded about 70 percent of the total trade in services in the OIC countries.

The report predicted that the trade in services in Islamic countries will decrease during the coming period, as a result of the decline in the cost of shipping of dry cargo.

Under its Ten Year Plan of Action (2005-2015), supported by national governments’ policies, OIC is pushing for faster trade growth in the member states, which grew from $1.77 trillion in 2005 to $3.43 trillion in 2015, an increase of 93 percent.

—AB/IINA