It would be wrong to link religion to economic activity, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday.
Speaking to journalists while returning from Saudi Arabia, where he attended the Fifth Jeddah Economic Forum, Erdoğan repeated his position that there was no need for an Islamic Common Market, as had been proposed by some regional countries.
“My views on the Common Islamic Market was considered positive during my bilateral meetings in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “This issue has been raised in the past. The economy does not have any religion. One of the most important instruments of economy is money. Efforts to base money on ethnicity will lead to negative results. And the globalisation process in the world will, of course, reject these results.
While humanity, information and monetary management had become the main focus of both the economy and politics, the Islamic world had lagged behind in this process, the Prime Minister said.