SCO summit to consider new economic cooperation program

MOSCOW, June 8 (Itar-Tass) -- The jubilee summit of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) will consider a new economic cooperation
program for ten years, Leonid Moiseyev, the Russian president's envoy for
SCO affairs and national coordinator of the organization from Russia, told
a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday.
"A similar program existing now has become obsolete," he said. "We now
draft proposals that would envisage more active cooperation of private
businesses and more specific work of ministries, first of all, in the
areas of innovation and technologies," he said.
Moiseyev has said the summit will also discuss prospects for further
widening of the organization. Priority candidates to the entry are four
observer states - India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan, and two states with
the status of partner in the dialogues - Belarus and Sri Lanka.
As to Afghanistan, "it already has a semi-official status in the SCO
framework," Moiseyev said. "Afghanistan participates in all SCO
functions," the presidential envoy said. "It would be absolutely natural
to grant to it the status of an observer with the consensus of all member
countries, as all formal prerequisites for this already exist," he said.
Experts are unanimous in the view that economic cooperation in the
framework of the SCO lags behind the political dialogue. The new program
for economic cooperation, they believe, will enable the organization to
find its niche in the areas of economic interaction and to participate
more actively in the solution of social and economic problems essential to
stability and security in the region.