On 7 June 2021, SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov had an online meeting with the Alibaba Group delegation.
The discussion covered the large IT company's cooperation with the SCO member states that are interested in promoting and developing e-commerce and the digital economy. Vladimir Norov noted that documents had been adopted within the SCO aimed at developing the IT sector in the SCO space.
"The SCO member states are developing other draft documents aimed above all at unlocking the potential and using existing opportunities to increase the digitalisation in our countries. A number of important events have been scheduled during our anniversary year to discuss ways and mechanisms to develop the digital economy and e-commerce, involving the officials responsible for developing this field as well as the expert community and companies directly involved in e-commerce," he noted.
Alibaba Group representatives informed the SCO Secretary-General about their vision of the matter and stressed that they considered future cooperation with the SCO member states very important. They said they were ready to work to achieve the goals outlined at Vladimir Norov's meeting with Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang to develop and promote e-commerce and the digital economy in the SCO region.
According to them, they drafted a special programme to help develop the industry within the SCO space. It was noted that Alibaba Group was willing to contribute to training specialists in the sphere of e-commerce for the SCO member state and also interested in developing cooperation with the SCO Family countries.
Vladimir Norov welcomed Alibaba Group's proposal and added that the SCO Secretariat was ready to support the relevant efforts.
The cooperation between the SCO Secretariat and Alibaba Group in organising joint events started in 2019. Joint seminars, webinars and conferences were held, which were joined online by over 400 representatives of SCO member states as well as Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and America: 45 countries in total. Representatives of the IT giant also take an active part in events held by the SCO Secretariat.