Stronger economic cooperation highlighted at SCO forum

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) needs to boost economic cooperation among its member states, and further explore new potential fields, experts said during the 8th session of the SCO forum held here on Thursday.

Experts from SCO bodies, members, observers and dialogue partners gathered at the forum to exchange views on the achievements and obstacles of economic cooperation among the SCO members, and provide suggestions on how to further deepen cooperation to benefit people of the member states.

As a multi-functional organization, the SCO has expanded its cooperation from political level to economic level over the past years.

Since 2003, SCO has signed a series of agreements on economic and trade cooperation.

During the economic crisis, it assisted its member states in tiding over the difficulties, the participants said.

However, further economic cooperation is needed for the SCO to strengthen its development, they added.

The SCO should focus on more specific cooperative programs, such as medical care, railway reform, public service and so on, experts from Russia and Tajikistan said.

"The SCO should explore more programs concerning the livelihood of the people," said the deputy director at Strategic Research Center under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan.

And those specific programs will more easily get support from the governments of the member states and will be boosted more rapidly, she said.

The economic cooperation should be expanded from governmental level to nongovernmental level. Through cooperation between companies among the member states, more programs can be invested and promoted, a Russian expert suggested.

The group should think more about the economic and trade cooperation mechanism and strategy in the future, a participant suggested during the free discussion session.

An integrated development strategy should be established among the member states and more discussions about how to cooperate and who to cooperate with should be conducted by experts of the SCO, he said.

Pan Guang, an expert at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, expressed his confidence of the SCO cooperation in the future.

"The most impressive progress of economic cooperation of the SCO is the decision to establish SCO banks and SCO Development Fund made last year," Pan said in an interview with Xinhuanet.

Although efforts to deepen economic cooperation across the region still face a series of obstacles because the SCO members have different development levels and plans, it is still hopeful that further and deepen cooperation will be achieved within the group, he said.