PMs speak highly of SCO economic cooperation

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, September 23, 2003

PMs speak highly of SCO economic cooperation

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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Tuesday that the multilateral economic cooperation document signed at the SCO prime ministers' consultation will usher in smooth regional economic cooperation among members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Referring to the document as a great achievement of the consultation, Wen told the press that the document specified the priority cooperative areas, major tasks at present and long-term strategies in economic cooperation among SCO members.

The organization, launched in June 2001, consists of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Prime ministers of the six countries gathered here Tuesday for a consultation.

Wen said the consultation is an important activity after the SCO Moscow summit meeting in May this year. The six prime ministers reached a consensus on a broad range of issues and expressed satisfaction with the meeting's results.

The topic of regional economic cooperation was brought up at the first consultation of the SCO prime ministers in September 2001. In the two years since, the six SCO members have reached consensus and formed their basic ideas in this regard.

On the organization's mechanism building, Wen said several documents covering the SCO budget for the year 2004, rules and regulations on salary guarantee and allowances for staff members of the SCO permanent body, local anti-terrorism institutions and personnel arrangements and technical initiation of the SCO permanent body, were signed by the six prime ministers at the consultation.

This was to ensure that a regional anti-terrorism body and a SCO secretariat will be officially set up no later than Jan. 1, 2004, he said.

The prime ministers also discussed cooperation in the fields of organization safety, traffic and transportation, emergency disaster relief, culture and health.

Wen said that all parties concerned expressed satisfaction over the progresses in various cooperative areas and agreed to increase communication between departments concerned, improve cooperative mechanisms and take practical cooperative measures, in a bid to promote cooperation among SCO members to a higher level.

"The consultation on Tuesday has created favorable conditions to expand mutually beneficial cooperation among the six SCO countries and improve SCO organization building," he said.

Wen said he believed that with the joint efforts of member countries, the SCO will play a bigger role in promoting regional security and stability and will make more contributions to world peace and development.

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