The Meeting for the Establishment of Entrepreneurs Committee of SCO and for Holding of SCO Industrial and Economic Forum was held, Vice Minister of Commerce Yu Guangzhou accepted an interview on issues of SCO's development of trade and economic cooperation and holding of industrial and economic forum.

Mr. Yu Guangzhou introduced that 2006 marked the fifth anniversary of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the 10th anniversary of the Mechanism of Shanghai Five Summit. The SCO summit will be held a few days later. The Party Central Committee and State Council attached much importance to the regional economic cooperation of SCO, and President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had worked on promotion of reaching consensus of all parties under bilateral or multi-lateral situations of summits or premiers' meetings in the past. SCO became stronger and developed step by step in the past 5 years, and the regional economic cooperation had a primary effect with mutual efforts, had support and concern of President Hu.

Mr. Yu Guangzhou said that SCO regional economic cooperation made steady progresses after positive promotion of all parties during the past 5 years and obtained remarkable achievements. We could summarize it as "lay a legal foundation, set up an organization mechanism, specify the development goal and make a positive effect"

First of all, a series of legal documents on economic cooperation had been passed through common efforts of SCO members, including MOU of Starting Regional Economic Cooperation and Launching Trade and Investment Facilitation, Programme for Multi-lateral Trade and Economic Cooperation, and Measures of Multi-lateral Trade and Economic Cooperation signed and approved by premiers of all members, which detailed the goal, task and measure of the regional economic cooperation.

Second, the mechanism of SCO Trade and Economic Ministers’ Meeting was improved gradually and operated well, and consisted of ministerial meeting, high level committee and professional work group, responsible for implementation of decisions made at the Summit or Premiers' Meeting in trade and economic area, coordination and promotion of regional economic cooperation. The Ministry of Commerce, as the leader of SCO regional economic cooperation approved by the State Council, launched active and effective works at home and abroad with great cooperation and support of other departments under the arrangement of the Party Central Committee and State Council, and many suggestions put forward by China had been adopted by all members and even reached to be the consensus of them. Meanwhile, all parties established an entrepreneurs committee, organized by big and medium enterprises of member countries, and was held every year by turns to build up a platform to promote cooperation. Now, Chinese Committee had more than 70 big enterprises, and for Russian Committee, there were 40 members. A Coalition for banks was started up to provide co-financing service to big projects in the region through principle of marketlization.

Last, regional economic cooperation set a long-term goal. The 3-step assumption firstly advocated by China, which was "pushing forward trade and investment facilitation and improving cooperation environment, enhancing economic and technical cooperation to benefit all parties, realizing free flow of goods, capital, technology and service in the region within 10 to 15 years", was accepted by all members and taken as the latest, medium and long-term development goals.

Mr. Yu Guangzhou said that cooperation among SCO members made outstanding achievements with mutual efforts. The increase margin of trade and investment went up remarkably. In 2005, China's foreign trade with SCO 5 countries amounted to US$37.7 billion, up by 212% compared with that of 2001 when the SCO established. And total actual investment of China to the 5 countries reached about US$8 billion, about 4 times of that in 2001. According to incomplete statistics, cross-investment among the members hit US$15 billion, and a batch of trade and economic projects in oil, transportation, telecommunication, electrical power, chemical industry, construction material, project contracting, agriculture and agricultural products were implemented. Economic and technical cooperation was extending to the region on the basis of bilateral cooperation.

He said that 2006 Summit made great achievements in trade and economic field with all efforts of SCO members. US$ 900 million preferential export credit for members announced by President Hu Jintao at the Tashkent Summit on June 2004 was fulfilled. The bank coalition established during the Premiers' Meeting in Moscow on Oct. 2005 achieved positive progresses in co-financing. SCO members highly appraised the contribution of China in regional economic cooperation.

When referring to the situation on industrial and economic forum and entrepreneurs committee held during the Summit, Mr. Yu Guangzhou introduced that Premier Wen Jiabao put forward, at the Moscow Premiers' Meeting in Oct. 2005, the suggestion of holding industrial and economic forum and entrepreneurs committee during 2006 Summit, and obtained positive support and response of all parties. The Meeting for the Establishment of Entrepreneurs Committee of SCO and for Holding of SCO Industrial and Economic Forum was sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce, Shanghai Municipal government and SCO Entrepreneurs Committee, aiming at enhancing understanding, strengthening friendship, seeking for cooperation, mutual benefit, reciprocity and development. In the afternoon on June 14, the Meeting for Establishment of Entrepreneurs Committee was held, and a series of rules and documents of the committee would be discussed to pass at the Meeting. And the SCO Industrial and Economic Forum would be held in the morning on 15, including two sub-forums (trade and investment cooperation, and financing cooperation), and aiming at reinforcing communication among enterprises of SCO countries, enhancing dialogues between government and enterprises, discussing issues of trade and investment facilitation, big projects cooperation in energy sources, transportation and telecommunication in the region, and of construction of financing support system.

The successful holding of the above activities marked the important practical step of regional economic cooperation. Mr. Yu Guangzhou believed that entrepreneurs and bankers of SCO countries would raise many instructive proposals to the development of regional economic cooperation and the cooperation would be further enhanced owning to their active contribution.

We sincerely hoped that SCO members could study together issues all interested in through the Forum and Committee to perform decisions made by leaders of the countries in trade and economic cooperation, and meanwhile, could deeply push forward the implementation of economic projects concerned about by all members to promote the regional economic cooperation to obtain essential achievements.

Mr. Yu Guangzhou pointed out when answering questions of reporters on China's consideration to further push forward SCO regional economic cooperation that China attached much importance to the regional cooperation and always viewed it as the effective channel driving up the economic development and common prosperity of SCO region, would like to increase investment within the limited capacity to contribute to the development of regional economic cooperation. Meanwhile, China was willing to cooperate with all parties to fulfill the agreements and consensus reached by leaders and premiers of the countries in trade and economic area. We would focus key cooperation on the following 4 aspects in next stage:

1, Enhancing promotion of trade and investment facilitation. Trade and investment facilitation was a long-term task for regional economic cooperation, providing fair, transparent, foreseeable and favorable environment for enterprises to engage in trade and investment through Customs, quality inspection, transportation, investment promotion and law relief to reduce trade costs, lower risks of investment and benefit to further expand scale of trade and investment.

2, Improving trade structure and confirming new goal of trade development. China and SCO 5 countries had good momentums of trade development and to timely put forward trade development goal between China and the 5 countries in 2010, to expedite the expansion of trade scale and increase the share of trade between China and the 5 countries to total foreign trade of them was beneficial to strengthen trade dependence among all members through all efforts.

3, Deepening economic and technical cooperation and pushing forward network cooperation projects in predominant fields.

4, Timely researching the long-term development goal of regional economic cooperation. Under the situation of strong development of economic globalization and regional economic integration, SCO, as a new regional international organization, should deeply discuss the development goal of regional economic cooperation.