PM Shehbaz to leave for Uzbekistan tomorrow on two-day visit

Premier to attend SCO annual meeting along with other leaders, members and heads of organisations

ISLAMABAD:

Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif will be leaving for Uzbekistan tomorrow for a two-day visit, to attend the annual meeting of the Council of Heads of State of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), it was reported on Wednesday.

Leaders of the SCO member countries and observer states as well as heads of the SCO organizations and other special guests are also to attend the meeting.

The leaders will emphasize on important global and regional issues at the upcoming event, including climate change, food and energy security and sustainable supply chains.

They will also approve agreements and documents that will chart the future direction of cooperation among the SCO member states.

Since its establishment 21 years ago, the SCO has had an extraordinary journey by following the principle of Shanghai Spirit of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diversity of civilizations and pursuit of common development, committed to world peace and human progress.

The SCO made important theoretical and practical explorations for building new international relations, and adopting common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security measures. It also focused on jointly responding to security challenges.

The Asian cooperative body has also successfully played an important role in the regional counter-terrorism cooperation, economy and trade exchanges.

PM Shehbaz will hold bilateral meetings with other participating leaders on the side-lines of the summit.

Read PM Shehbaz, Imran engage in verbal slugfest on social media

Xi Jinping at SCO

Chinese President Xi Jinping is also expected to attend the SCO meeting in the city of Samarkand, and pay state visits to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Over the past 70 years, Pakistan and China have always stood united, trusted, respected and supported each other, sharing weal and woe.

Pakistan is grateful for China’s valuable support in its fight against Covid-19 and will strive to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) into a demonstration project of high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative and build an even closer Pakistan-China community with a shared future in new era.

Executive director of the Centre for Global and Strategic Studies of Pakistan Khaled Akram said, “As unstable and uncertain factors are on the rise globally, the SCO needs to strengthen coordination in multilateral affairs and firmly uphold true multilateralism.”

Akram also said that, "He believes that with the joint efforts of all countries, the summit will achieve a series of important consensus and outcomes, and give new impetus and direction to the SCO to achieve and greater development plans,"

"As member of the SCO family, Pakistani people believe that China’s leadership role is crucial to the development of the SCO. President Xi’s presence at the summit will help the SCO make new and greater contributions to regional security, anti- terrorism cooperation, world peace and economic development,” he added.

The SCO summit will start a new page of global cooperation particularly when the world is facing economic downturn and regional crisis.