Kazakh president urges Shanghai group countries to jointly resolve food, energy issues

ASTANA, December 15. /TASS/. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev met on Monday government heads in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) regional assembly, his press service said. “The organisation works, first of all, for the sake of stability and to prevent territorial disputes between us as well as to combat three evils of modern times - separatism, extremism and terrorism,” Nazarbayev's press service quoted him as saying. Speaking to member-state prime ministers, who gathered in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, the Kazakh leader stressed that the SCO, a security grouping comprising Russia, China and the Central Asian former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, was a sort of an Asia-wide wealth fund where each member state should play a role. Nazarbayev said it was necessary that the SCO member states joined forces to resolve issues of food, ecological and energy security. “The SCO member states have opportunities to meet the demands for food and energy,” he said, adding that combined efforts were also needed to address the problems of water scarcity and access to other resources. The president said Kazakhstan supported the idea of creating an SCO development bank to expand the organisation’s activities. One of the most important areas of cooperation within the SCO was transport development, Nazarbayev said, noting Kazakhstan’s transport projects designed to develop mutual trade and business ties across the region. “Our country has launched a new economic policy ‘Nurly Zhol - Path to the Future’ which envisages state investments aimed at infrastructure development,” he said. As part of this initiative, there were plans to build roads and railways from Astana to all the republic’s regions. Construction work was also underway to build two ports on the Caspian Sea, one of which would be used by ferries to transport cars and train carriages. “I think all the SCO members will use the new transport opportunities,” Nazarbayev said. The president’s press service said the meeting in Astana brought together Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Joomart Otorbayev, Tajik Prime Minister Kokhir Rasulzoda, Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Rustam Azimov, SCO Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev and the director of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Executive Committee, Zhang Xinfeng. Read more