The Establishment of an Efficient Regional Economic Integrative Core Forum among the OIC Members: A Feasibility Study

In this paper, we have sought to recognize the Islamic countries eligible to participate in the early nucleus of economic integration. In other words, our main question is: by using the key international macro-economic variables, which members of OIC have the capacity to actively participate in regional integration? Or, in the words, which countries enjoy the necessary qualifications for establishing the early nucleus of an effective regional economic integration among the OIC Members? In order to answer this question, using 16 key international macro-economic and trade indices, which have a bearing on regional economic integration, have attempted to make taxonomy of OIC members and to recognize the most we suitable members for constituting the early nucleus of regional economic integration.In terms of our aggregate combined index of OIC members, our findings suggest that the United Arab Emirate, Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Lebanon have, respectively, the highest numerical value and ranking. A look at these 10 high-ranking countries reveals that they are members of three major regional arrangements incorporated in the OIC: out of these 10 top countries, 5 countries are among the 8 members of the D-8, 4 countries are among the 6 members of the (P) GCC and 3 countries are among the 10 members of the ECO. It is noteworthy that many members of the (P) GCC and the D-8 are in a better position with respect to this index.The higher rank of these 10 countries in terms of the above index is due to their relatively higher numerical value and ranking in all three combined indices incorporated in the above index (i.e. economic welfare and development, international economics and foreign trade, and trade development). This has been also confirmed by econometric estimates, as the first two combined indices (i.e. international economics and foreign trade, and economic welfare and development) have played a much more significant role in the aggregate combined index. As a result, the improvement of the first two combined indices leads to the improvement of the aggregate combined index. So, we can conclude that those OIC members with a better position with respect to the key international macro-economic variables are the most eligible countries for establishing the early nucleus of an efficient regional economic integration.