While leaders from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or the SCO, are gathering in Beijing for the summit meeting, business people from the member states, observer countries, and dialogue partners, are also eager to deepen cooperation. The SCO Business Forum is being held in Beijing on Wednesday. Participants are pushing forward practical economic cooperation in the region.
Well, the SCO Business Forum is a routine sideline of the SCO summit. This year's forum has attracted over 700 business people, government officials and scholars. Chinese vice Premier Wang Qishan made a key note speech. He called for deepen and practical trade cooperation among the Eurasia countries.
This morning's forum did not create any trade document, yet the discussion cover a wide range of issues. Those include the regional economy, energy cooperation, and E-commerce, infrastructure and banking system integration.
Participants believe that strengthening economic and financial cooperation is an inevitable choice for the SCO members, to meet the challenges of regional integration and globalization. It also is an important measure to cope with the financial crisis.
Comparing with security cooperation, economic cooperation among the SCO members have been the weakest link. Bu the potential for development is vast. Participants say the growing economic cooperation could bring immense benefits, to the hundreds of millions of people across the region.
Now, the SCO member states are formulating a document that is set to facilitate transportation in the area. They also plan to set up financing guarantee mechanisms and are considering proposals to establish a development bank. More achievements will be exposed, when the SCO summit concludes on Thursday.