Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday put an emphasis on theneed of establishing Islamic Megabank project to meet the liquidity needsof Islamic financial institutions and Muslim geography.

Addressing the D-8 summit via video link, Turkish President Recep TayyipErdoğan reiterated his call for greater use of local currencies in tradeamong the members of D-8 group of developing nations.

“In order to protect our countries from currency risks, it is essentialthat we focus on trade with local money,” Erdoğan said.

Erdoğan said that, ‘for strong and sustainable growth rates, we have tofocus on high-tech, high-value-added production.’

He said that, ‘We must renew D-8 according to today’s needs, transform itinto a project and result-oriented structure, and take steps to acceleratedecision-making processes.’

‘We welcome the initiative ‘D-8 Research and Innovation Pioneers Network’,which includes the most prestigious universities of our countries,’ saidthe President.

He added that, ‘this network, which makes it possible to share informationbetween our universities and research institutions in innovative fieldssuch as renewable energy, artificial intelligence, robotics, internet ofthings, big data, block chain and nanotechnology, is critical for ourcountries to reach their deserved place.’