On 13 January 2020, SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov, who is visiting India, met in New Delhi with Shri Piyush Goyal, the Minister of Commerce and Industry and the Minister for Railways of the Republic of India.
Vladimir Norov praised India's efforts to promote multilateral trade and economic cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which benefits both India and the other SCO member states.
The sides exchanged views on the current state and further development of trade and economic cooperation within the SCO. They held in-depth discussions on India's presidency of the SCO Heads of Government Council and preparations for the council meeting to be held in India in the autumn of 2020 after the meetings of the SCO states' prime ministers, ministers and experts, in particular meetings of SCO senior officials in charge of trade and economic cooperation, national coordinators, financial and human resources experts.
The SCO Secretary-General pointed out the importance of India's initiative on hosting the first meeting of the Consortium of SCO Economic Analysis Centres, which is to rally the efforts of SCO member-states' research organisations towards preparing proposals on strengthening trade, economic and investment cooperation within the SCO. The officials discussed the steps that should be taken to prepare and hold this event.
Vladimir Norov assured the Indian minister that the SCO Secretariat was ready to actively contribute to the technical and essential preparations of all events to be held within the framework of India's presidency of the SCO Heads of Government Council.
Shri Piyush Goyal supported the SCO Secretary-General's idea of complementing the meeting of the SCO prime ministers, scheduled for the second half of the year, with a forum of business people and entrepreneurs from the SCO Family countries, to be organised with support from the SCO Business Council.
The officials also exchanged views on ways to boost the SCO countries' mutual assistance in the fields of transport, logistics, digitalisation, e-commerce, tourism and youth enterprise.
The meeting was held in a warm and friendly atmosphere.