Stronger economic cooperation highlighted at SCO forum (2)

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.