Saving, Investment and Expenditure Trends in the OIC Member Countries
Date: 15 January 2008

Graph InvestmentThe importance of savings and investments for the development and growth of any economy is well documented in the economics literature. Savings are the main source of funds to finance capital investment, while the share of total GDP that is devoted to investment in fixed assets is an important indicator of future economic growth for an economy. However, the levels of savings and investments in developing countries, including some of the OIC member countries, are not satisfactory. Comparing the 1993-1995 and 2004-2006 averages of gross savings and investments in fixed assets as a % of GDP for the OIC member countries shows that much has to be done in this regard.

Figure 1 displays the gross savings as a % of the GDP of the individual OIC member countries as well as those of the world and OIC averages in the two time periods of 1993-1995 and 2004-2006. It is observed that, although there was a slight decrease in the average savings of the OIC group as a whole compared to the decrease in the world average, some member countries like Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen increased their savings as a % of their GDP. In contrast, a sharp fall occurred in the case of a few OIC countries such as Turkmenistan and Jordan, and even turned to be negative in Lebanon.

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Saving, Investment and Expenditure Trends in the OIC Member Countries (English)