DUSHANBE, December 16, 2015, Asia-Plus — The 14th meeting of the Council of Heads of Governments (Prime Ministers) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Member States took place in Zhengzhou, the capital city of central China”s Henan Province, on December 14-15.
The meeting was attended by Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan K. Masimov, Premier of the State Council of People” s Republic of China Li Keqiang, Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan T. Sariyev, Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D. Medvedev, Prime Minister of Tajikistan Qohir Rasoulzoda and First Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan R. Azimov.
Participants in the meeting also included Secretary-General of the SCO D. Mezentsev, Director of the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Zhang Xinfeng, President of the SCO Business Council S. Katyrin and authorized representative of the SCO Interbank Consortium Council V. Dmitriyev.
According to
Xinhua
, the meeting was also attended by representatives of observer states with the SCO: Chief Executive Officer of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Abdullah Abdullah, Deputy Head of Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus N. Snopkov, Minister of State of External Affairs of the Republic of India Vjay Kumar Singh, Minister of Communication and Information Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Vaezi, Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia Tserendash Oyunbaatar, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, as well as UN Under-Secretary-General, UNESCAP Executive Secretary Shamshad Akhtar, and Executive Director of the Secretariat of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia Gong Jianwei.
Presided over by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the meeting reportedly discussed a wide range of issues related to international and regional economic growth, prospects and measures for improving economic and humanitarian cooperation for further strengthening of mutual understanding and traditional friendship between peoples of the SCO member states.
The meeting participants also analyzed SCO cooperation and exchange opinions on regional economic cooperation and exchanged views and discussed specific measures for anti-terrorism cooperation.
A joint communiqué on the outcomes was issued after the meeting.
The communiqué, in particular, says that SCO prime ministers confirming the support for China’s initiative on Silk Road Economic Belt issued a Statement on regional economic cooperation.
Noting the importance of continuing the work on creating the SCO Development Bank and the SCO Development Foundation (Specialized account) to stimulate trade and investment ties in the region, SCO prime ministers tasked heads of relevant ministries and agencies of the SCO member states with considering the aforementioned issue at the third Meeting of Ministers of Finance and Presidents of Central (National) Banks of the SCO member states in 2016 in Kyrgyzstan.
SCO heads of government also noted the importance of continuing mutually beneficial multi-dimensional cooperation in the sphere of energy, which includes the field of renewable and alternative energy sources.
The budget of the Organization for 2016 was adopted. Decisions pertaining to financial and organizational activities of the SCO permanent structures were also made.
The next Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) of the SCO Member States will take place in 2016 in Kyrgyzstan.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization currently has six full members — China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan are six observer states, and SCO’s dialogue partners include Sri Lanka and Turkey.
The Organization’s six full members account for 60% of the land mass of Eurasia and its population is a quarter of the world”s population. With observer states included, its affiliates account for about half of the world”s population.
