 Since November 2007, the Centre has been preparing short outlook reports on various socio-economic development topics related to the OIC Member States. Using the Centre’s OIC Statistics (OICStat) Database, these reports present statistical information and analytical investigations on the topics under consideration, enriched with figures and tables. The topics of these reports include, among others, demography and structure of population, size and structure of the economy, saving and investment, structure and direction of trade, labour productivity, health, tourism, gender, food security, cancer and street children.
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The importance of savings and investments for the development and growth of any economy is well documented in the economics literature. Savings are the main source of funds to finance capital investment, while the share of total GDP that is devoted to investment in fixed assets is an important indicator of future economic growth for an economy. However, the levels of savings and investments in developing countries, including some of the OIC member countries, are not satisfactory. Comparing the 1993-1995 and 2004-2006 averages of gross savings and investments in fixed assets as a % of GDP for the OIC member countries shows that much has to be done in this regard.
Value added of a sector means the sector’s contribution to the total GDP and is calculated as production minus intermediate consumption in that sector. In this report, it is aimed to investigate the value added structure of three major sectors (agriculture, industry and services) at the sub-groups1 level of the OIC. But the individual country performances will also be highlighted when it is striking.
The volume of merchandise trade among countries has been rapidly increasing in recent two decades along with the tidal wave of globalization that began in the late 1980s. In this respect, the growing levels of economic integration through the emergence of economic blocks in addition to the increasing number of trade agreements around the world, the formation of more flexible global production systems thanks to the developments in information and telecommunication technologies accompanied by the proliferation of multinational firms and foreign direct investments, and the improvements in modes of transportation that have resulted in lower costs have been the major contributors to the expansion in the global merchandise trade.