Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Uzbekistan for the next two days attending the 22nd Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit 2022. He will be joined by Russian premier Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, among others in the first in-person SCO summit since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic struck. 

The strategic stability in the Asia Pacific region, economic cooperation amongst the SCO members, and matters of cross-regional connectivity are likely to be high on the agenda.

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The Indian Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Manish Prabhat, suggested as much to ANI, saying, “Economic cooperation in the SCO is an important question, which will be discussed in the SCO meetings. When we are meeting with central Asian countries, we discuss connectivity which will promote trade, investment and other exchanges between Indian and central Asian countries.” 

What is the SCO?

The SCO is an 8-member intergovernmental organisation founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001. The current SCO Member States are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Apart from these 8 full members, the SCO also comprises four Observer States-Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia, that are interested in gaining full membership, as well as six dialogue partners- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. 

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It is the world’s largest regional organisation geographically as well as by population, accounting for approximately 40% of the world’s population and more than 30% of the world’s GDP.

The focus of the SCO, which is an economic and security bloc, has mainly been on regional security issues, the fight against terrorism, religious extremism, and ethnic separation, as well as on regional development and economic and cultural cooperation. 

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The SCO has worked with the UN closely having formed partnerships with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), and the UN Office on Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), among others.