BISHKEK (TCA) — Chinese President Xi Jinping will chair the 18th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced on May 28, Xinhua news agency reported.
The summit is scheduled for June 9 to 10 in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China’s Shandong Province.
Leaders of SCO member states and observer states, as well as heads of various international organizations will attend the summit, Wang said at a press conference on the summit in Beijing.
This is the first SCO summit since the expansion of the SCO in June 2017 at the Astana summit in Kazakhstan, when India and Pakistan were accepted as full members.
According to Wang, Xi will exchange views on the current and future development of the SCO, cooperation in all areas under the new situation, as well as on major international and regional issues, with leaders of the other seven member states, four observer states and chiefs of the international organizations.
The SCO comprises eight member states: India, Kazakhstan, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
The SCO observer states are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia.
Xi will sign the Qingdao Declaration and a dozen agreements on security and economic cooperation, and people-to-people exchanges with leaders of other member states, according to Wang.
On the sidelines of the summit, Kyrgyzstan President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay state visits to China at the invitation of Xi.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will pay a working visit to China.
Wang said the Qingdao Declaration to be issued after the summit would sum up the development experience of the past 17 years since the SCO was created in Shanghai in 2001.
The declaration will call on all parties to continue to carry forward the Shanghai Spirit of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of common development, Wang said.
He said that on security, the summit focus would be on the “three evil forces” (terrorism, extremism and separatism), drug trafficking and cybercrime.
“The Qingdao summit will lay out new plans to enhance the synergy of development strategies of member states, especially promoting the construction of the Belt and Road to lift regional economic cooperation,” the Chinese foreign minister said.
“I believe that Qingdao Summit will become a new milestone in the development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” Wang said.
