Economic and financial rationale for a regional multilateral bank for the Middle East and North Africa

"The MENA region has recently witnessed significant economic and financial development. Yet its trade and capital flows remain marginal on a global level, and risk perceptions and institutional underdevelopment are still a powerful obstacle to an increased access to capital markets, a better mobilization of savings and of long term finance for investment, especially large infrastructure projects. The paper argues that the creation of a regional multilateral bank for MENA could contribute to ease some of these constraints and to provide a powerful catalyst for increased capital flows, and that the recent attempt to turn this idea into reality, the MENABANK, currently on a shelve, deserves to be revamped"-- Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey web site.