Muslim-majority countries should build their own markets and produce their own technologies to become self-sufficient, Malaysian Prime Minister (PM) Mahathir Mohammad has said during the ongoing Kuala Lumpur Summit that was skipped by Pakistan.
“There are 1.7 billion Muslims. Obviously this is a big market if we decide to source our needs from Muslims and Muslim countries. Then we enrich ourselves,” he said while stressing the importance of technological and industrial progress in national development.
According to Anadolu Agency, the Malaysian premier said that Muslim countries did not have enough products by themselves and had to source most of their needs from other countries, as a result of which money flowed out.
“When money flows out, we become poor. But if we source, the things that we need from Muslim countries, then obviously our wealth will stay within the Muslim community, and we become richer,” he said.
“That is why among the things that should solve problems of Muslims is to build a market and produce the things and source them from each other but it is important we learn how to produce our own things,” he added.
He underlined that Muslim nations “will forever be playing catch-up” with the rest of the developed world “if we do not start creating and developing our own technologies.”
“We have no choice but to start working on this,” he said.
The three-day Kuala Lumpur Summit is ongoing in the Malaysian capital with the attendance of hundreds of government officials and representatives from civil society and business sectors from across the Muslim World.
While the Malaysian premier’s statements are much similar to those made by his Pakistan counterpart, Imran Khan, Islamabad has pulled out of the conference over concerns it could “divide” the Muslim world.
Pakistan’s Gulf allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), had earlier expressed reservations over the country joining the summit, following which Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had confirmed that neither he nor PM Imran would be attending the summit.
“Pakistan pulled out of the summit due to concerns by Saudi Arabia that the meeting could create a new bloc that would rival the existing 57-member state Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),” he had said.
