Prime ministers of the six Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members
Tuesday signed a joint communique during their consultation in Beijing.
During their discussion, the prime ministers from China, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, focused on enhancing the SCO
mechanism construction and economic and trade cooperation in a friendly and
constructive atmosphere and reached wide-ranging consensus on concrete issues.
The prime ministers pointed out the SCO mechanism has been improved with
cooperation in all fields enlarged and deepened. The SCO, drawing more attention
from the international community, has become an important cooperation mechanism
to keep peace and stability in central Asia, and push forward all members toward
progress.
The successful SCO summit held in Moscow this May is of great significance to
SCO development, the leaders said. Consensus and resolutions reached in the
summit demonstrated that the SCO has entered a stage of overall development, and
was an important guideline for SCO's coming work.
The prime ministers approved a multilateral economic cooperation program
among the SCO members to strengthen economic and trade cooperation based on
reciprocity and equality and to improve the environment for foreign investment.
Since the first SCO prime ministers' consultation in September 2001, all
parties have done the work necessary to initiate economic cooperation within the
SCO framework. The prime ministers believed under the current situation of a
globalized economy and regional economic integration, that enhancing
multilateral cooperation among SCO members is conducive to each member's
economic development and the cohesiveness of the organization.
The prime ministers said the major task of the regional economic cooperation
of SCO is to make bilateral and multilateral trade and investment more
convenient. The SCO members will push forward multilateral cooperation in the
fields of energy, information, telecommunications, the environmental protection,
and natural resources, which include making and implementing projects of shared
interests.
In the meantime, they will also abide by the long-term objective of regional
economic cooperation defined in the multilateral economic cooperation program.
The prime ministers urged that SCO members further cooperate in
transportation, improve transportation infrastructure construction, coordinate
cross-border transport policies, establish international transportation
channels, and draft relevant multilateral documents.
They also agreed on strengthening cooperation in disaster relief and
prevention, including enhancing disaster relief information and technology
exchange, as well as staff training. Therefore, all parties agreed to sign
necessary multilateral documents.
The prime ministers stressed that as the "three forces" of terrorism,
separatism and extremism still posed a serious threat to regional security, the
SCO members will actively work to implement the Shanghai treaty in this regard
and finalize the drafting of the anti-drug cooperative documents.
As reiterated by all parties, the SCO adopts an opening up policy, and is
willing to carry out various dialogues and cooperation with other countries and
international organizations according to the UN Charter.
The prime ministers also agreed to have the next regular meeting in Bishkek,
capital of Kyrgyzstan.
