Central Asia Economic Paper No. 3, September 2012
By Bruno De Cordier
With more than sixty percent of the IBD’s capital shares held by Gulf and other Arab economies, the bank is primarily a channel for Arab investment in southern Eurasia.
For the southern Eurasian regimes, adherence to the IDB is less a matter of pan-Islamic solidarity than it is a way to diversify sources of aid and investment, not with the purpose to replace Western aid but to weaken the latter’s preconditions.
IDB’s activities focus on transport infra-structure to boost South-South trade, but the group also tries to promote a number of faith-related activities like Islamic banking and Halal food production.
