ZHENGZHOU, China, December 15. /TASS/. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is expected to take part in a conference of the Council of Prime Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), both in the narrow and expanded formats.
Upon the end of the meeting, the participants will sign a range of joint documents and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang will make a statement for the mass media.
Officials on the Russian government staff told TASS the session that will be chaired by Prime Minister Li will focus on the problems of cooperation in trade and the humanitarian sphere in the context of the current global situation.
In part, the participating Prime Ministers of the six full member-states are supposed to review the practical steps taken in line with decisions of the July 2015 summit of the SCO in Ufa, Russia.
"The case in hand is, first and foremost, the working out of a roadmap for translating into life the Strategy for SCO Development Through to 2025, especially in the economic and humanitarian areas," a government official said. "Special emphasis will be made on transportation, energy and foodstuff security, and the quality of practical collaboration among the SCO member-nations."
As for the plenary session that will be attended by delegations of observer countries - Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan - and a number of in international organizations like ASEAN and some agencies of the UN, discussions there will center around the rate of engaged of observer and partner states of the SCO in the economic cooperation in the format of the organization.
Participants in the summit will consider an earlier than planned enactment of the September 2014 agreement on favorable terms for international automobile haulage. Russia ratified it on November 28, 2015.
Moscow also finds it important to deepen cooperation of the SCO energy club set up in 2013 as an informal dialogue floor open to government agencies, businesses and researchers from the member states, as well as observer and partner countries.
Russian government believes efficient cooperation in foodstuff security is an important aspect of the SCO work.
"In this context, we find Kazakhastan’s proposal on adopting a relevant programme to be quite promising," the official told TASS.
The list of topics the conferring Prime Ministers are going to discuss also includes the setting up of an optimal mechanism for facilitation of operations under the endorsed projects, including Kyrgyzstan’s proposal to convene a meeting of finance ministers and presidents of Central Banks next year
Upon the end of the conference, the Prime Ministers are expected to sign an intergovernmental agreement on promoting the activity of the SCO network university that has brought together sixty-nine schools of higher learning from Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The document has been drafted by the Russian side.
The SCO Council of Prime Ministers will hold its next session in 2016 in Kyrgyzstan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called for considering a broad economic partnership embracing the Eurasian Economic Community, the SCO and ASEAN as he presented an annual state-of-the nation address to Russian parliament at the beginning of this month.
He indicated these countries make up almost one-third of the world economy in terms of purchasing power parity.
According to Putin, this partnership might focus on protection of capital investments, refining of the commodity export/import procedures, joint elaboration of standards for the next-generation technological products and reciprocal opening up of the national markets of servides and capitals.