On 18-21 January 2025, a delegation of the SCO Secretariat led by Deputy Secretary General Oleg Kopylov visited Urumqi at the invitation of the People’s Government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to attend the opening ceremony of the 3rd session of the 14th National People’s Congress and the 3rd session of the 13th Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
During the trip, the SCO Secretariat delegation also visited Tacheng and its Open Development Pilot Zone, and Karamay, which houses the China-SCO Big Data Cooperation Centre, Huawei’s Cloud Computing Industrial Park, the Carbon Neutrality Research Centre, China’s largest campus of the China University of Petroleum, and several other facilities.
The delegation held substantive talks with the leaders of the Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as well as the heads of party committees of the cities it visited. The exchange of views focused on increasing Xinjiang’s role as the key transport and logistics hub located at the junction of state borders of several SCO countries. The sides also held in-depth discussions on a series of large international events to be held in Xinjiang this year within the framework of China’s SCO Presidency, including a forum of political parties, a conference on digital technologies, a meeting of the heads of communication and information technology agencies, a forum dedicated to the SCO Year of Sustainable Development, as well as other important events.
