Turkish State Minister Kursad Tuzmen traveled to Bali on Wednesday to participate in a ministerial gathering of the Developing-8 (D-8) group, an eight-nation bloc whose members are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Türkiye.
The bloc's 5th Summit, running through 13 May, is set to produce two landmark agreements: a Preferential Trade Agreement designed to expand and diversify commerce among member states, and a Customs Cooperation Agreement aimed at aligning customs procedures with international standards and improving information-sharing among national customs agencies.
Tuzmen will represent Türkiye at the Council of Ministers session, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to attend the heads-of-state summit on 13 May.
D-8 traces its origins to an October 1996 cooperation conference in Istanbul, with its formal establishment declared at an Istanbul summit on 15 June 1997. Previous summits have been held in Istanbul, Dhaka, Cairo, and Tehran. The organization's stated goals include strengthening developing nations' roles in the global economy, broadening trade opportunities, and raising living standards for member populations.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in May 2006, in its own words.