Tajik President Confident in Sco Effectiveness
DUSHANBE. July 23 (Interfax) – The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has produced concrete results during the years of its existence and its future is cloudless, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon said in an interview with the Chinese media ahead of a meeting of SCO foreign ministers and the visit of the Chinese leader to Tajikistan.
The next SCO summit is slated for August 28.
“Tajikistan is confident about SCO prospects and this confidence is based on concrete results achieved together over a short period,” the presidential press service quotes Rakhmon as saying.
“SCO was established precisely in Dushanbe in 2000 on the basis of the Shanghai Five and the next summit will give a powerful impetus to the development of economic relations,” he said.
The SCO summit in Dushanbe is expected to be attended by the leaders of the SCO member-states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The leaders of four observer nations – India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have also been invited, as have the presidents of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
In the interview Rakhmon called Russia Tajikistan’s natural partner. “Russia is a natural strategic partner for Tajikistan and the involvement of that country in the Tajik economy supplements the military-political relations of allies and resolves arising problems,” he said.
Rakhmon also stressed the importance of advancing Tajik-Chinese relations. In the volume of investments in the Tajik economy China is inferior only to Russia, however, Chinese companies prefer bringing their own workers to the sites instead of hiring locals the way Russia does.
“Several major cooperation documents will be signed during the official visit of the Chinese chairman to Tajikistan that will deal with the construction of hydro-technical facilities, the extraction of minerals, oil and gas in particular, and also with communications, farming and industry,” Rakhmon said.
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