SCO to strengthen its economic component

ASTANA. KAZINFORM Kazakhstan's Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov says that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization may turn into an international structure with a substantial economic component, Kazinform correspondent reports.

"The SCO format offers many opportunities for creating ideal frames for a joint cooperation and implementation of joint projects. With the consideration of geographical configuration and number of population of the Organization's member-countries, we have a good chance to turn into an international structure with a substantial economic component, given that we properly use our levers," said Abdrakhmanov at a meeting of the SCO Foreign Ministers Council.

According to him, ensuring long-term trade-economic development by means of establishment of industrial-processing, transit-transport and social infrastructure in the SCO space must be in spotlight of the member-states at the current stage.

"SCO countries possess a good potential for establishment of a multilateral format of effective economic interaction. Unfortunately, this potential is not used fully, primarily because of domination of a bilateral format in the member-countries' relations," he explained.

As the Minister noted, Kazakhstan stands for all-round attraction of the SCO Business Council and Interbank Association to a wide cooperation by means of ministerial conferences and working groups for economic issues.

"We need to contribute to boosting the interaction of these two SCO structures with business communities and banks both of the member-states and observer countries as well as dialogue partners. In Kazakhstan, we see our business communities' interest in development of cooperation within the SCO," the Minister added.

As K.Abdrakhmanov stressed, the issue of establishment of a development bank and a development fund remains unsolved to date. "The soonest establishment of these mechanisms could be a pledge for bringing the Organization's economic component to a brand new level," he clarified.

According to him, Kazakhstan attaches great importance to increasing the volume of mutual trade among the SCO member-countries, "which could be boosted through the creation of the SCO Free Trade Zone at least by several interested member- and observer-countries at the initial stage," he concluded.