Islamabad:Federal Minister and Chairperson Board of Investment Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh has said that the SCO evolved from a confidence-building mechanism into a platform encompassing security, business, economic cooperation and people-to-people contacts representing around 25 percent of the global economy.
Sheikh was speaking as chief guest at a joint seminar on “SCO at 25: The Shanghai Spirit and a new journey with Islamabad” organised here by Institute of Regional Studies (IRS) in collaboration with China Media Group (CMG).
He said this evolution in part is related to China’s approach to consensus-building. With Afghanistan, India and Pakistan all members, he said, the SCO provided an important platform for the region to sit together and seek solutions to shared challenges
He highlighted China’s emphasis on education and its achievement in lifting around 800 million people out of poverty. “How they did it, we have to study that,” he said. Noting that Pakistan spends more on defence than on education, he called for greater emphasis on consensus-building in educational institutions and across society.
Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Chairperson Pakistan-China Institute, in his keynote address, said the summit came at a time of transformation, turbulence and transition marked by the unravelling of the Western-led order.
Referring to Allama Iqbal’s vision of the rise of Asia, he described the SCO as providing the Global South with “a strategic option,” in contrast to alliance-based arrangements such as the Quad and AUKUS.
Zhuang Xinyan, Counselor at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, said her country as a founding member of SCO helped “forge a new path of regional cooperation,” with seven cooperation platforms generating more than 160 projects.
Describing Pakistan’s chairpersonship as “a major event for SCO family and a significant milestone in Pakistan’s diplomacy,” she called for upholding the Shanghai Spirit, strengthening security cooperation against the “three evil forces,” pursuing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and upholding true multilateralism. She reaffirmed that China, as Pakistan’s “iron brother,” stood ready to fully support Pakistan’s chairmanship.
