This session was arranged by the strategic and interregional research institute at the Presidency of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.

This session was arranged by the strategic and interregional research institute at the Presidency of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.

The session is being attended by experts of leading research centres of the SCO’s member states Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, acceding states India and Pakistan, observer states Iran, Afghanistan and Belarus, representatives of the Executive Committee of the SCO regional anti-terror structure and the SCO Secretariat and representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited in Uzbekistan.

In recent years, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization took up a prestigious position among international and regional organizations. Today the SCO is working effectively in such areas as interstate relations, security, stability and development.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Forum is a multi-lateral independent consultative mechanism on the provision of help and scientific support for SCO member states’ scientific research and political centres, the expansion of relations among them, the conduct of research into certain issues in order to increase the effectiveness of the SCO’s functioning.

On the first day of the SCO Forum’s session, discussion is being held about the results of the Tashkent meeting of the Council of the SCO Heads of State that took place in June 2016.

It was said that in the period of Uzbekistan’s chairmanship of the SCO in the years of 2015-2016, large-scale work had been carried out to build up the international prestige of the SCO and to increase the effectiveness of its work.

The documents signed at last year’s summit serve to further step up the SCO’s work in priority areas and to carry out practical tasks relating to ensuring peace, stability and development in the region.

At that session of the Council of the SCO Heads of State, an important document – the Tashkent declaration on the results of 15 years of work of the SCO and on priority areas of its development in future was adopted. Another important issue at the summit was a decision on the SCO’s enlargement.

On the first day of the Forum’s session, there is also discussion about the development of cooperation among the SCO’s member states in jointly countering threats to stability and security, and about such areas as economic cooperation and trade, transport and communications, tourism, science and technology.

At the session, representative of Uzbekistan gave a presentation about the Action Strategy for five priority areas of the development of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Detailed information was given about the country’s position on further economic liberalization and foreign investment attraction and about priority areas of the country’s practical and well-thought-out foreign policy.

It was said that this strategy’s goals conformed with the main areas of the SCO’s work directed towards ensuring security and steady development.

The Action Strategy gives special attention to the further extension of cooperation in the sphere of transport and communications, and this is also of benefit to SCO member states.

There was also a presentation about the main provisions of the Year of Dialogue with the People and Human Interests state programme. It was said that within the framework of this programme, large-scale tasks were being carried out to raise the prosperity of the population, to create employment opportunities, to improve the quality of health care services and to further boost the role of neighbourhoods.

The session’s participants favourably evaluated these presentations.

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s firm position “government departments should serve the people, and not the other way round” is an important factor in the implementation of the specified tasks, they said.

At the session, there was an exchange of opinions on the further development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and specifically on the stabilization of the situation in Afghanistan, the ensuring of security and stability in the region and on prospects for the SCO’s enlargement.