Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with leaders of SCO nations including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sarif, and Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev participated in the 22nd SCO Summit at Samarkand in Uzbekistan on 16th September 2022.
- Addressing the summit, Mr Modi said the pandemic and the crisis in Ukraine caused many obstacles in global supply chains, due to which the whole world is facing an unprecedented energy and food crisis.
- He said SCO must make efforts to develop reliable, resilient and diversified supply chains in our region.
- He stressed that this will require better connectivity, and need for giving each other full right to transit.
India assumed presidency of SCO
- India has assumed the rotating presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – for the first time – from Uzbekistan who hosted the 22nd SCO Summit in the historic Uzbek city of Samarkand on 15-16 September 2022.
- In July 2022, SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming announced that under a new mechanism during India’s SCO Presidency from September 2022 to September 2023, Varanasi will be the first city in the SCO region to be granted the rotating title of ‘Cultural & Tourism capital of SCO’.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proposed many initiatives in the realm of culture for SCO including SCO Food Festival, SCO Film Festival.
- In July 2022, the SCO Secretariat also commemorated the 20 years of adoption of SCO Charter and compiled a picture album that includes about 240 World Cultural heritage sites in SCO countries which includes 32 sites from India.
- The Beijing based SCO is made up of China, Russia, India, Pakistan, as well as four central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
- SCO is known as world’s largest and most populous regional institution, covering approximately 60% of the area of Eurasia, 40% of the world population, and more than 30% of global GDP.
- This is an influential grouping which, according to media reports has total trade value of a whopping $6 trillion in 2020 among the member states, increased from just $667 billion in 2001.
