New Delhi: Vice President Venkaiah Naidu will Chair the 19th meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of Government to be hosted by India in virtual format on November 30.
It will be the first time that a Summit-level Meeting will be held under India’s Chairmanship, since it gained full -membership of the organization in 2017.
The SCO Summit is held annually at the level of Prime Ministers of SCO nations and deals primarily with the trade and economic agenda of the organization.
India considers the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as an important regional organization to promote cooperation in the areas of peace, security, trade, economy and culture, the ministry of external affairs said in a statement.
India is committed to widening our cooperation with SCO by playing a proactive, positive and constructive role in the organisation, it said.
India assumed the Chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government on November 2 last year as per rotation from the previous Chair – Uzbekistan and will complete its year -long tenure on November 30.
The Prime Ministers from the SCO Member States of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will attend the SCO meeting on November 30.
Pakistan will be represented by the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
Apart from the SCO Member States, the four Observer States of SCO will also participate- including the President of Afghanistan, the First Vice President of Iran, the Prime Minister of Belarus and the Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia.
Turkmenistan has been invited as a Special Guest of the Host and will be represented by the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers.
The two bodies of SCO will be represented by the SCO Secretary General and the Executive Director of the SCO Regional Anti Terrorist Structure (RATS).
The Chairmen of the SCO Business Council and the SCO Interbank Association will also be present.
During the course of its Chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government in 2020, India has particularly focused on creating three new pillars of cooperation : Startups and Innovation, Science and Technology and Traditional Medicine and also proposed many other concrete initiatives.
India has offered to create and Chair a new Special Working Group on Startups and Innovation and to set up a new Expert Working Group on Cooperation in Traditional Medicine, the ministry added.
India has also organized in the virtual format, the first-ever SCO Young Scientists Conclave(24-28 Nov) in which more than 200 young scientists participated, the first-ever Consortium of SCO Economic Think Tanks(20-21 Aug) and the first-ever SCO Startup Forum(27 Oct).
