SCO Secretary-General hopeful Ufa summit will endorse development concept until 2025

ST.PETERSBURG, June 18. /TASS/. Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organizaton (SCO) Dmitry Mezentsev that the organization’s summit in the capital of Bashkortostan Ufa will endorse the concept of SCO development until 2025. He said as much at the meeting of the SCO business forum on Thursday held in the framework of the St.Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). "We expect that the heads of the SCO founding members will support the proposals of the parties and interested institutions and will endorse the concept of SCO development until 2025," Mezentsev said. "This capacious document spells out the SCO economic component." The SCO Secretary-General noted that the development strategy for 10 years was not an action plan, but the definition of guidelines for the coming years. "The document, which we hope will be signed, is not the organization’s claim for new types of influence in the region. This is the transition to the new scale and depth of economic cooperation," Mezentsev said. He expressed hope that the ministries of economic development would offer SCO heads of state "a new version of the trade and economic cooperation program for at least five years." According to Mezentsev, trade and economic cooperation within the SCO is not just a slogan. "This is a real practice, which allows millions of people on the space of the organization to realize that its purpose is, in particular, to take into account and support their real interests, interests of their families and their future," he said. The SCO summit will be held in Ufa between July 8 and July 10, 2015. Read more