SCO to tackle counter-terrorism, trade

Counter-terrorism and trade cooperation are likely to top the agenda of the 16th Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of Governments (Prime Ministers) on Thursday and Friday, experts said.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Russia on Wednesday to attend the meeting in Sochi, Russia.

“The SCO has become an important platform to safeguard regional stability and promote mutual development and prosperity since it was founded 16 years ago,” the Xinhua News Agency quoted Li as saying.

Li said he expects all parties to exploit the potential of the platform since its recent expansion and further cooperate in politics, security, economy and culture.

The SCO is composed of China, Russia, Kazakhstan,

Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and India. This is the first summit with India and Pakistan as full members since they joined the platform in June.

“A broader counter-terrorism cooperation mechanism can be built, such as launching joint border patrols, as the accession of India and Pakistan extends the geographic range of the SCO as far as South Asia,” Zhao Huirong, a research fellow of Central Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The eight-member bloc, which covers nearly half of the world’s population and three-fifths of the Eurasian continent, is the world’s largest regional cooperation organization in terms of area and population.

The Chinese foreign ministry said joint communiqués and resolutions might be signed or adopted during the meeting.

Pushing Belt and Road

Assistant minister of commerce Li Chenggang had earlier called for further multilateral trade and investment cooperation and opposing trade protectionism in the SCO market.

During the meeting, agreements on e-commerce and services trading are expected to be reached, Li Chenggang said.

As the first rotating presidency of the SCO since its expansion, China will also work with various parties to push forward the “Belt and Road” cooperation, he added.

“SCO members are very likely to agree to simplify the documents of customs, inspection and quarantine for easier trade cooperation,” Li Xin, director of the Center for Russian and Central Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times on Thursday.

But a free trade deal is unlikely to be reached this year, Li Xin said, adding most SCO nations are worried about foreign products hitting their domestic markets hard.

Since India and Pakistan joined, China’s trade with SCO members reached $159 billion between January and September this year, a huge increase from $12 billion in 2001, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

India has been cautious toward China’s Belt and Road initiative. The SCO will help the two nations seek greater common interests and further narrow political differences, Zhao said.

India and China have close economic connections and huge potential in infrastructure development to gradually achieve interconnectivity, Zhao added.

Before heading to Sochi, Premier Li met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin Wednesday night. Premier Li said China is ready to enhance the alignment of the China-proposed Belt and Road initiative and the development programs of the Eurasian Economic Union.