SCO cannot stay away from global events - Russian president’s envoy

BEIJING, December 13. /TASS/. The issues of trade, economic and humanitarian cooperation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) with focus on the global polices and economies will be on agenda of the meeting of the Organisation’s heads of representations, due in Zhengzhou (Henan Province, Central China) on December 15, the Russian president’s special envoy on SCO Bakhtiyer Khakimov said in an exclusive interview with TASS on Sunday. The president’s envoy participated in a meeting of the Organisation’s national coordinators, organised in Beijing on December 10-12. The meeting was devoted to work on agenda of prime ministers’ meeting, to discussions of documents and decisions the prime ministers may adopt during their meeting, he said. The meeting of prime ministers "will focus on priority discussions of issues related to development of trade, economic and humanitarian cooperation given the current processes in the global policies and economies." "Clearly, SCO cannot stay away from what is happening in the world, and heads of governments will synchronise positions to offer adequate joint measures of response to the challenges and to new opportunities," the envoy said. "The prime ministers will focus on practical implementation of the decisions made at the Organisation’s summit in Ufa (Russia)," he said. "A priority here is a new roadmap for those tasks, which heads of the states fixed in the final document on SCO’s tendencies of development and evolution to 2025." "No doubt, detailed attention will be paid to economic cooperation and humanitarian ties. I believe heads of governments would not ignore the topic of regional economic integration, the processes developing in the Eurasian space," he continued. "You are well aware of the Eurasian integration, promoted by Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. But there exist other initiatives. The topics on the current agendas of bilateral and multilateral formats - partnership in various configurations, close ties, free trade zones and so forth. We are for keeping those processes transparent, complimentary, so that they minded interests of all parties to the economic relations and did not undermine the system, which has formed over many years under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation." "From this point of view, I believe, the prime ministers will exchange opinions both in narrow and expanded formats, as observer countries will be involved, too," he said. "Thus, I believe the discussion will be rather interesting, fruitful and, most importantly, result-focused." The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation The SCO creation was proclaimed on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai (China) by the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan. At present three countries (Afghanistan, Iran, and Mongolia) have observer-nation status, and three more countries (Belarus, Turkey and Sri Lanka) have the dialogue partner status. The SCO member states occupy a territory of around 30 million 189 thousand square kilometres, which makes up three-fifths of the Eurasian continent, and have a population of 1.5 billion, which makes up a quarter of the planet's population. India and Pakistan officially received full SCO memberships during the Organisation’s recent summit in Ufa, Russia, on July, 2015. Iran also seeks full membership in the organisation. The SCO has established relations with the United Nations, where it is an observer at the General Assembly, with the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Read more