Panaji, 5 May 2023
Minister of External Affairs of India, Mr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar,
Foreign Ministers of the SCO member states,
Director of the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, Mr Ruslan Mirzayev,
It is a great honour for me to take part in a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the SCO member states. I am convinced that the meeting, chaired by the Republic of India, will prove to be a complete success.
Allow me to greet Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu, State Councilor and Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China Qin Gang and Foreign Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan Bakhtiyor Saidov. They are taking part in the Council’s meeting for the first time, and I would like to wish them every success in their work.
I would also like to thank the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Republic of India, which presided over the SCO in 2022 and 2023, for effectively organising all scheduled events in line with the Shanghai Spirit, for displaying impressive professionalism and for their hospitality.
From July 2022 and until now, the Secretariat has been focusing on assistance to member states in advancing political, security, economic and cultural-humanitarian cooperation, as well as expanding international exchanges. In particular, following the normalisation of the sanitary-epidemiological situation, our team quickly resumed the normal pace of work, and the number of offline meetings and other events has increased noticeably.
The Secretariat was actively involved in preparing for and holding meetings of the main SCO governing bodies, namely, the Heads of State Council, the Heads of Government Council and the Foreign Ministers Council, as well as 35 meetings of heads of ministries and agencies, 74 meetings of expert working groups and over 250 other meetings of various kinds. I paid official or working visits to the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Republic of Belarus, Iran, Mongolia and Cambodia. I am planning to visit India, now presiding over the SCO with the aim of reviewing the onsite expectations and requests of the parties linked with our Organisation, and understanding them.     
In March 2023, we conducted an independent audit check of the SCO Secretariat’s 2019-2021 financial and economic performance. Due to restrictive and quarantine measures during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019-2021, the Secretariat’s unused balance totalled about $3 million. Under the Organisation’s Financial Regulations, this sum is to be divided between member states. The 2024 SCO draft budget, which has already been submitted to member states for consideration, stipulates a small increase in spending volumes. I would like to ask you to discuss and approve this draft document.  
Esteemed Ministers,
The world is now experiencing complicated and profound changes. Our region and the entire international community are facing various new threats and challenges, as well as new opportunities. The peoples of member states are linking new expectations with the SCO.
Against this backdrop, we, on the one hand, continue to strengthen mutual trust and cohesion in line with the Shanghai Spirit and the main principles and values that the Organisation upholds. On the other hand, we strive to streamline the Organisation’s working mechanism in order to effectively respond to new threats and challenges and to create a better future for our peoples. 
It is the SCO’s mission to maintain regional security and stability. Our efforts have yielded wonderful results. At the same time, we still face diverse challenges to our security, including the “three evil forces,” drug trafficking, transnational organised crime, cyber crime, etc. This makes it necessary to facilitate even closer interaction and to strengthen the mechanisms of our cooperation. For this purpose, we are in every way facilitating the implementation of the SCO Heads of State Council’s decision on Streamlining Mechanisms to Counter Challenges and Threats to the Security of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (passed in 2021 in Dushanbe), and we are expecting progress in the near future.
Economic interaction within the SCO is attracting greater attention on the part of member states and their peoples. They are linking their growing expectations with it, and the scope of cooperation is constantly expanding. We need additional efforts to increase the effectiveness of SCO economic partnership, which would give our peoples a stronger sense of its benefits. It is necessary to work more intensively towards merging the economic development policies of member states, to facilitate the creation of institutional mechanisms in the trade, economic, financial, transportation and customs spheres, in the field of science and technological innovations, intellectual property protection, migration, tourism, education, etc. We must also boost the free movement of goods, capitals, services and technologies. 
The SCO region is the birthplace of magnificent civilisations with their own history. Humanitarian exchanges are one of our advantages and are high priority aspects of our work. As I see it, we need to consistently expand cultural and humanitarian exchanges in the SCO region and elsewhere, to promote mutual understanding between the peoples, to help educate the rising generation and to encourage government institutions and analytical centres to provide public diplomacy support in these areas. This will make it possible to lay a solid foundation for expanding diverse cooperation in a comprehensive, long-term and consistent manner within the SCO.
We are expanding the Organisation steadily and consistently with the support of member states. We have made substantial progress, while interacting with the UN and its specialised agencies, as well as regional organisations. The Secretariat will continue to coordinate the implementation of member states’ decisions on launching the procedure for accepting the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Belarus as the SCO members and granting the status of SCO dialogue partners to new countries. We will facilitate more profound cooperation with other international organisations that are our partners.
We are re-designing the official website of the SCO Secretariat. In this connection, I would like to thank Russian Foreign Minister Mr Sergei Lavrov and to thank the Russian side for its decision to provide financial support for a revamp of the Organisation’s official website. Rossiya Segodnya is planning to launch a re-designed and technologically advanced website of the SCO Secretariat in October 2023. The Secretariat will also work hard to improve the website’s content and performance. I hope that member states will provide their recommendations and support.
Esteemed ministers,
For the SCO to function more effectively, it is necessary to streamline the internal structure of the Organisation and its permanent governing bodies, while upgrading its working mechanisms. This work has far-reaching implications. The Secretariat attaches great significance to such work and actively coordinates it. After monitoring the working process and learning from our own experience, we have submitted two written reports with specific proposals. In late March 2023, Kazakhstan hosted the first round of consultations on this issue. We hope to achieve practical results soon.
Regarding various divisions of the Secretariat, we believe that its structure should be augmented by adding translation/interpretation, protocol, oversight and legal services. It is also necessary to strengthen the press service and to hire additional economic, finance and IT experts. The Secretariat is planning to set up an internal electronic document management system to boost the efficiency and quality of our work. We are counting on the support of member states.  
Esteemed meeting participants,
January 2024 will mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the SCO Secretariat. We should mark this landmark date in an impressive setting by involving foreign ministers of SCO member states in an acceptable format. We suggest inviting the heads of foreign policy agencies and the officials who opened the Secretariat’s building in 2004 to Beijing.
In conclusion, I would like, on behalf of the entire Secretariat team, to assure Your Excellencies that we will exert tireless efforts in order to develop the Organisation, and that we will unfailingly fulfil our duty.
Thank you.