Jeddah, 13-02-2011 : The Minister of Industry and Trade of Turkey, Mr. Nihat Ergun, revealed, during his visit to the IDB headquarter in Jeddah, his country’s willingness to strengthen cooperation between the IDB Member Countries, in particular, cotton producing countries. “Turkey has a wide range of experience in cotton industry, which makes it ready to cooperate with cotton producing countries which are interested in developing cotton industry” he added. He went further to say that Turkey is willing to increase cooperation with the IDB Group particularly in small and medium investment in the Member Countries. In turn, the President of the Islamic Development Bank, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali, stated, during his meeting with Mr. Nihat Ergun and the accompanying delegation that Turkey is one of the founder countries of the IDB and a major contributor to its capital. He went further to say that the IDB will continue to enhance cooperation especially intra-trade between Turkey and the Member Countries. The meeting was also attended by the Consul General of Turkey, IDB Vice President Dr. Ahmed Tiktik, and the CEOs of the IDB Institutions: the Islamic Cooperation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC), the Islamic Cooperation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), and the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC). It is worth mentioning that the total financing approved by the IDB to Support developmental projects in Turkey has reached more than US$ (4.7) 4.7 billions including financing 97 developmental projects in the field of agriculture, industry, communications, social services, and Islamic banking, in addition to more than 300 exports and imports operations in its efforts to enhance Intra-Trade between Member Countries. The value of insurance coverage provided by the ICIEC for the benefit of exporters, importers and investors in Turkey has reached more than US$ one billion.