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Chinese president urges priorities to boost SCO

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-15 15:51

ASTANA - Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday outlined four priorities for the development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in its next decade.

"We should... make all-out efforts to build the SCO into a regional cooperation organization that features sound institutions, smooth coordination, comprehensive cooperation, openness and harmony," he said at an SCO summit marking the 10th anniversary of its establishment.

The first task he proposed is that all the six members of the SCO should stick to their 2007 treaty on good-neighborliness, friendship and cooperation, step up coordination and consultation on issues concerning their core interests and further enhance mutual trust and mutual support.

"We should adhere to the principle that all countries, big or small, are equal and sincere to each other, and decide matters of significance to the organization on the basis of consensus," Hu added.

The second priority, said the Chinese president, is that the SCO should further improve its security cooperation mechanism and enhance its members' interoperability to fight "the three evil forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism as well as other menaces like narcotics and multinational organized crime.

The third one is that the SCO members should further expand economic cooperation, facilitate trade and investment, promote connectivity in transportation, energy and telecommunication infrastructure and steer the region toward economic integration, he said.

"China will continue delivering preferential loans to other SCO members and try to turn the Euro-Asia Economic Forum and the China-Asia-Europe Expo into regional economic cooperation platforms so as to better promote regional economic development and prosperity," Hu said.

The fourth is that the SCO members should continue to expand people-to-people exchanges in such fields as culture, education, health, tourism, deepen mutual understanding between the peoples and thus enhance ?public support for the SCO's future development.