Kuwaiti Minister of Finance Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah on Tuesday called on Islamic countries to increase their economic cooperation, including exchanging more trade and investments to achieve high rates of sustainable development and maximum growth. Addressing the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum here, the finance minister, who is also deputy prime minister and the personal representative of His Highness the Amir of Kuwait, said that the Islamic world is facing great challenges that require enormous efforts to surmount them. Chief among these, he said, are the increasing rates of poverty, disease and the low rates of education, health, housing, and economic opportunities. He urged partnerships among Islamic countries to face these challenges and to achieve progress through the partnership between private and public sectors. Noting that the forum is being held for the first time outside of the Arab or Islamic worlds, the Kuwaiti minister said that his country valued the forum and its recommendations and recalled that Kuwait hosted the 4th edition of the forum between April 29 and May 1, 2008. It was at that forum that Kuwait contributed USD 100 million toward the establishment of a fund to provide basic food staples for needy Muslims around the world. The minister also recalled Kuwait\'s pledge of USD 300 million to the Islamic solidarity development fund, which was announced at the recent OIC summit in Makkah