Prime ministers' meeting of SCO member states fruitful, says premier Wen

BEIJING, Oct. 14 -- The eighth prime ministers' meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states made remarkable achievements, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Wednesday.

Wen told the press that the achievements were embodied in the following four aspects:

Firstly, during the meeting, all the attendees set down joint measures to increase economic cooperation, cope with global financial crisis, and ensure steady economic growth.

All prime ministers to the meeting agreed to establish a monitoring mechanism for the SCO economy to study the situation of all SCO member states' economic and trade cooperation, service market, and mutual investment.

This would provide information guarantee for regional economic growth, Wen said.

Second, all prime ministers during the meeting supported the increase of financial dialogue and agreed to improve investment environment and upgrade investment level. They decided to speed up the opening of a special SCO account to resolve financing problems of major cooperation projects.

Third, all attendees agreed to promote trade facilitation, improve port infrastructure construction and enhance capability and efficiency of going through the Customs.

They also agreed to resolve the problem of product quality and safety in regional trade.

Fourth, consensus was reached to expand agricultural cooperation and to make cooperation in science and technology.

The prime ministers' meeting, held in the Great Hall of the People, was chaired by Premier Wen and attended by his counterparts from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as representatives from the SCO observer nations and Afghanistan.

After the meeting, the prime ministers of the SCO member states signed a joint communique.