AT the recent B57+ Business Leaders' Summit in Istanbul, Türkiye, I had the opportunity to engage with business leaders, investors and policymakers from across the Islamic world. Our discussions centred on an important question: how can we better mobilise the enormous economic resources of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to create greater prosperity for our people?
The OIC's 57 member states represent more than twobil people, approximately one-quarter of the world's population. Collectively, they generate around US$10 trillion in economic output. In 2025, their economies grew by 4.1%, outperforming the global average.
These are formidable fundamentals. The Islamic world possesses substantial capital, abundant natural resources, young populations, strategic geographical advantages and increasingly sophisticated industrial capabilities. What struck me was not only the extraordinary potential, but also how much of it remains unrealised.
The central challenge is our collective ability to translate this potential into greater trade, productive investment and equitable prosperity for all.
An economic giant that remains underconnected
Consider one revealing statistic. In 2025, according to the Islamic Centre for Development of Trade, trade among OIC member states amounted to US$979bil, representing just 19.57% of their combined foreign trade, well short of the OIC's own 25% target. Approximately 80% of trade was conducted with countries outside OIC.
There is nothing inherently wrong with diversifying partnerships, which remains essential to economic progress. However, these figures suggest that the Islamic world has yet to fully capitalise on its complementary economic strengths, including enormous financial resources, advanced industrial capabilities, growing consumer markets and substantial human capital.
Imagine the possibilities if these strengths were better connected through integrated supply chains, joint industrial ventures and stronger commercial partnerships. Our ambition should not simply be to enhance intra-OIC trade, but to create greater value together with fellow OIC economies.
Existing initiatives such as the Trade Preferential System among OIC Member States provide an important foundation. But agreements must translate into practical outcomes through improved connectivity, fewer trade barriers, harmonised standards and stronger business networks.
Capital is available, opportunities must be created
The investment figures are equally instructive. Foreign direct investment (FDI) into OIC economies increased from US$148bil in 2021 to US$220bil in 2025. Yet momentum stalled in 2025, with inflows rising just 0.6% and the OIC's share of global FDI slipping to 13.5%.
For a grouping representing a quarter of humanity, there is considerable room to do better. Sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors and private businesses across the Islamic world collectively command substantial capital.
What is often missing are sufficiently bankable projects, trusted institutions, regulatory certainty and effective mechanisms that connect investors with opportunities. This is where OIC cooperation must become more ambitious and practical.
We should explore stronger co-investment platforms among sovereign wealth funds, development institutions and private investors, particularly in infrastructure, renewable energy, digital technology, healthcare and food security. Islamic finance, including sukuk, can also play a larger role in mobilising long-term capital for productive investments.
We also need to move towards sharing technology, expertise, innovation and productive capabilities. The true measure of investment success must not merely be its dollar value, but the positive economic spillovers it generates: quality employment, technology transfer, stronger domestic supply chains and opportunities for local businesses.
Malaysia's opportunity in a changing world
For Malaysia, the OIC's untapped potential presents an important strategic opportunity. As a member of both the OIC and Asean, Malaysia occupies a distinctive position connecting the Islamic world with one of the world's most dynamic economic regions.
Asean, with approximately 680 million people, attracted a record US$243.9bil in FDI in 2025. Its growing manufacturing ecosystem, expanding consumer markets and integration into global supply chains offer considerable opportunities for OIC investors.
Malaysia can become an important gateway for capital from the OIC economies into Asean, while helping Malaysian businesses expand into new markets.
Our strengths in semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, halal industries, Islamic finance and the energy transition provide natural areas for cooperation. Such partnerships would diversify Malaysia's sources of investment, expand market access and strengthen our economic resilience.
This is especially important as geopolitical competition intensifies and global trade patterns become increasingly unpredictable. We cannot afford to depend too heavily on any single market, investment source or economic relationship.
This is precisely why continued engagement with business leaders and investors across the Islamic world matters. Having served as Malaysia's finance minister and investment, trade and industry minister, I have seen first-hand that investment decisions often follow months, sometimes years, of engagement, negotiations and relationship-building. Agencies like Miti and Mida, together with our diplomatic missions abroad, undertake much of this important work.
Relationships and trust are built over time, not overnight, and, unlike actual investments, they rarely make the headlines. In a rapidly changing world, Malaysia must keep opening new conversations and sustaining existing ones, with as many countries and business communities as possible.
Today's conversation with a policymaker, business leader, or institutional investor may create tomorrow's investment opportunity. Malaysia's own economic experience reinforces this lesson. Over the past four years, under Prime Minister Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's leadership, greater policy consistency, clarity and institutional reform have strengthened investor confidence.
Advance estimates show our economy grew by 5.5% in the first nine months of 2026, while net FDI increased by 41.2% to MYR65.9bil in 2025. These outcomes demonstrate the importance of clear economic direction and credible institutions in navigating global uncertainty. This is the experience I shared with our OIC partners in Istanbul, while learning from their own successes.
Turning potential into better lives
To be sure, the OIC should not aspire to become an inward-looking economic bloc. Its greater ambition should be to strengthen cooperation among members while becoming a more competitive and influential participant in the global economy.
The Islamic world already possesses the population, capital, markets and resources to become a formidable economic force. What it needs now is to turn potential into productivity, capital into capabilities and economic partnerships into lasting prosperity that benefits ordinary people.
That prosperity must also be shared within the OIC itself, where income per person ranges from as low as US$400 in some countries to roughly US$70,000 in others; Islamic social finance, from zakat to the Islamic Development Bank's waqf-based Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development, can channel the Islamic world's wealth towards those left behind.
For Malaysia, engaging the Islamic world is also about building new economic opportunities, diversifying our partnerships and securing our place in a rapidly changing world.
The opportunity is immense. The responsibility now is to realise it.
TENGKU DATUK SERI ZAFRUL ABDUL AZIZ
Malaysian Investment Development Authority chairman
