The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian political, economic and military grouping, pledged on Wednesday to initiate a five-year cooperation plan to put regional economic growth on a firmer footing, amid the toughening global business climate.
Delegates from its 16 member states, observer countries and dialogue partners attended the 14th session of the Economic and Trade Ministers' Meeting of SCO in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, and approved the drafting of the "List of Measures by the SCO to Further Promote Project Cooperation 2017-2021".
Worth a total of $100 billion, said officials, the list will involve more than 100 major projects in 10 main sectors including energy, infrastructure and telecommunications.
Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said China is ready to use financing platforms such as Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund to meet the investment needs of SCO member states.
"We will give priority to investment cooperation on major infrastructure projects, resource development, and industrial and financial cooperation in accordance with the list," said Gao.
The SCO is an inter-governmental organization founded in Shanghai in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Together with observer countries such as Pakistan, India and Iran and dialogue partners including Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nepal, its members had a combined population of 3.3 billion and gross domestic product worth $15.5 trillion in 2014, representing 20 percent of the global GDP.
China's trade with other SCO member states surged from $14.23 billion in 2002 to $130 billion last year. The country has proposed a series of strategic concepts in that time, most recently the Belt and Road Initiative－a trade and infrastructure network that includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
The network connects Asia, Europe and Africa and passes through more than 60 countries and regions with a population of about 4.4 billion.
Six SCO member states and the six observer nations are along the ancient Silk Road trade routes.
The SCO has targeted 2020 as a crucial target for the free flow of goods, services, technology and capital among member nations.
To avoid unexpected risks caused by the global financial market, Gao said companies within the region are encouraged to use their own currency to seal deals, and build e-commerce platforms to save on both operating and trading costs, as well as carry out closer cooperation between customs authorities to simplify clearance procedures.
Aziz Nosirov, SCO's deputy secretary-general, said because the economic growth of many SCO members relies heavily on commodity trade, some are suffering losses from the low prices of many goods in the global market.
He said all member states should take bigger steps toward promoting trade and investment facilitation and liberalization.
"It is important for member states to expand trade volume, improve trade structure, adopt common measures, and simplify business, customs, quality inspection and transport policies," said Nosirov.
Qian Keming, vice-minister of commerce, said the country would push forward the creation of a regional connectivity network, helped by the building of 4,000 kilometers of railways and more than 10,000 km of roads over the next few years.
Commerce and economy ministers gathered in Xi'an, meanwhile, and called for closer cooperation in investment, production capacity, equipment and infrastructure development, as well as cooperation zones.
Sun Zhuangzhi, secretary-general of the SCO research center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "These new moves will embody tangible efforts linking growth centers such as Beijing, Moscow and St Petersburg, and developing new growth hubs such as Tashkent and Dushanbe (the capitals and largest cities of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, respectively), and Almaty (the largest city in Kazakhstan) in the region."
Eager to promote regional trade, a regional goods exhibition is being held in Xi'an between Sept 24 and 26 to showcase the members' pillar products, from agricultural goods to telecommunications and solar power generation equipment.
