Chinese premier vows to advance production capacity cooperation with SCO members

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday said China will continue advancing production capacity cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states to facilitate their industrialization and urbanization.

Li made the proposal while attending the 17th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government in Tajik capital Dushanbe.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang attends the 17th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government in Tajik capital Dushanbe on Friday, October 12, 2018. [Photo: gov.cn]

Li said China has joined other SCO member states to set up seven overseas state-level economic and trade cooperation zones, boosting the local economy and creating jobs.

A good proportion of the total 84.6 billion U.S. dollars Chinese investment in the SCO member states went to production capacity cooperation projects, he said.

The premier said that China would continue to encourage competent Chinese enterprises to invest in other SCO member states and expand the cooperation in infrastructure, processing and manufacturing, energy development, and agriculture.

Li said the financial resources such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund and the SCO Interbank Consortium should be tapped to support the production capacity cooperation projects and, meanwhile, experts should continue the feasibility studies on an SCO development bank.

The SCO was established in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan joined as full members in 2017. Its Council of Heads of Government meets once a year to discuss the organization's multilateral cooperation strategy and priorities.