DUSHANBE, March 12, 2009, Asia-Plus — The 10th summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) was held in Tehran Wednesday.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev delivered a speech after the opening ceremony and then handed over the ECO presidency to his Iranian counterpart, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The summit, in particular, reviewed the world’s financial crisis and ways to address the economic challenges.
Delivering a statement at the summit, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon expressed hope that the summit would give impulse to further development of the region and new mechanisms to mitigate effects of the global financial crisis would be developed, according to presidential press service.
Tajik leader supported Iran’s initiative to set up a working group to study effects of the global financial crisis and work out recommendations for overcoming it.
Rahmon noted that member nations of the ECO were among main trading partners of Tajikistan. He, in particular, noted that the ECO states accounted for 35 percent of Tajikistan’s external trade turnover.
Tajik president expressed confidence that Tajikistan’s efforts to develop transportation and trade infrastructure, construct bridges and highways would be supported by all member nations of the Organization.
The president also supported unification of customs procedures and creation of the tourism support fund within the ECO.
Tajik leader called on the summit participants to begin reorganization of ECO starting from today but not 2015 as experts propose, the press service said.
