Speech by H.E. Li Keqiang at the 17th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Agricultural trade is another promising area of cooperation. China is ready to import more high-quality agricultural products from fellow SCO member states. Likewise, we hope to see more specialty Chinese agro-products on the dinner tables of families in other SCO members. The first China International Import Expo will be held in Shanghai next month. We welcome businesses from all SCO countries to participate in the exhibition.

Third, we need to advance industrial capacity cooperation to explore effective pathways toward common development. Industrial capacity cooperation can help countries leverage their resource endowments and comparative strengths, catalyze industrial transformation and upgrading, and advance industrialization and urbanization.

China has set up seven national-level economic and trade cooperation zones in other SCO member states and reaped early harvests in a number of regional projects of industrial capacity cooperation, which have started to boost growth and create jobs for the local communities. The Chinese side will continue to support efforts to take its advanced equipment and high-quality industrial capacity overseas, encourage leading businesses to invest in SCO countries, and expand mutually beneficial cooperation with SCO countries in areas such as infrastructure, processing, manufacturing, energy exploitation and agriculture.

Industrial capacity cooperation requires strong investment and financing support. Chinese investment stock in SCO member states reached US$84.6 billion, much of which has been channeled to projects in this area. To ensure adequate funding support for industrial capacity cooperation projects in the region, we also need to make the best use of financing platforms such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund, SCO Interbank Consortium and China-Eurasia Economic Cooperation Fund. Meanwhile, we may continue our discussions at the expert level to explore a feasible plan for setting up an SCO development bank, with the specific aim of providing reliable financial services for practical cooperation among SCO member states.

Fourth, we need to enhance connectivity to provide a stronger engine of common development in the long term. Convenient and efficient transportation networks are critical to the free flow of production factors, cross-border trade and travels. Enhanced connectivity among SCO member states is needed for continued development and cooperation in the region and is also a priority of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as it will contribute to interconnected development of the Eurasian continent.

Recent years have seen notable headway in SCO connectivity building, as evidenced by better railway infrastructure in countries along the routes of the China-Europe freight train service, more sophisticated intra-region cross-border road networks, and a number of oil and gas pipelines that are powering the economic development of various countries. As the next step, we need to expedite discussions on an SCO program for road development, earnestly implement the Agreement among the Governments of the SCO Member States on International Road Transportation Facilitation and ensure the operationalization of the planned road connections by 2020.