IRI's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Monday in Kuala Lumpus that Iran attaches special importance to economic, scientific and technical cooperation among member states of the D8 group.

IRI's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Monday in Kuala Lumpus that Iran attaches special importance to economic, scientific and technical cooperation among member states of the D8 group.

Mottaki who arrived in the Malaysian capital city on Sunday, made the remarks while addressing the 12th ministerial meeting of the D8 group.

Referring to the global economic crisis, he called for appropriate measures to reduce the economic and social consequences of such a crisis in the D8 member states.

On great potentials existing in all D8 countries, Mottaki stressed that they can play a constructive and effective role in founding the economic and monetary structure of world countries.

As to efforts made by the Islamic Republic of Iran to help establish an investment fund among the D8 member states, he expressed hope that the project would become materialized in the near future.

He voiced Iran’s readiness to provide the fund with dlrs 20 million as its primary asset.

The Iranian foreign minister also called for greater roles to be played by private sectors of the member states in various economic projects.

The 12th Session of the D-8 Council of Ministers kicked off on Monday morning in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian capital, in the presence of foreign ministers of Iran and other member states.

During the meeting, D-8 foreign ministers are to study the past year's performance of the council and the latest programs implemented by the council. They will also confer about the ways of implementing the council's approvals.

The session is also to review reports about the 26th and 27th commission of senior officials and the 2010 budget of D8 secretariat.

Different agreements in the fields of customs cooperation, removal of preferential tariffs and giving visa to tradesmen will be discussed in the meeting. By implementing the agreements, traders would be able to promote their economic activities in D-8 member states.

In today's session the D-8 member states will offer their proposals within the framework of the group's ten-year road map in the field of ensuring food security.

The road map which has been approved at the sixth meeting of the senior officials' commission defines framework and policies of the D-8 group in different fields for ten years.

The volume of D-8 member states' trade exchanges is more than one billion dollars. The group's members have decided to increase the volume by at least 5 percent.

The D8 was established on June 15, 1997, in Istanbul, Turkey, comprising Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey with a combined population of 900 million. Malaysia took over the chairmanship of the D8 last year.

The grouping aims to be the mechanism for cooperation in the economic sector through sharing of expertise to improve the position of member countries in global economy.