New Delhi: During a meeting chaired by India, the heads of government of the eight-member bloc of emerging Eurasian economies have called for developing transparency and fair multilateral trading system based on WTO principles to aid economic recovery in a post-COVID-19 world.
While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is considered the head of government in the Indian system, the 19th virtual meeting of the council of heads of governments (prime ministers) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was chaired by Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, which the Ministry of External Affairs noted was an “upgrade”. Modi is currently visiting his parliamentary constituency, Varanasi.
The other members of the SCO were represented by their prime ministers, except for Pakistan. Instead of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, the South Asian country was represented by parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs Andleeb Abbas.
The council of heads of government is the second highest forum in the SCO after the council of heads of state, and has a mandate to discuss and cooperate on trade and economic matters.
In his opening remarks, Naidu said that the hope was pinned that trade and investment would be the engine to reviving growth and the driver of recovery. “For trade to play its part in the recovery process, all the partners must be trustworthy and transparent. It is trust and transparency that determine the sustainability of global trade and nations must demonstrate their compliance with multilateral rules of trade to remain a part of this system,” he stated.
Also claiming that economic growth can only operate in environment of peace and security, Naidu asserted that the “most important challenge faced by us in the region is terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism”.
“We remain concerned about threats emerging from ungoverned spaces and are particularly concerned about States that leverage terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Such an approach is entirely against the spirit and ideals and the Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation,” he stated.
The joint communique, issued after the meeting, also underscored that all the participants noted the importance to “jointly develop a transparent, open, inclusive, fair, non-discriminatory multilateral trading system based on the principles and rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and to promote an open world economy”.
The SCO member states stressed the need to reform the WTO, but also said that it was “necessary to ensure that the key values and fundamental principles of the WTO are preserved”.
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Since the mandate of the SCO council of heads of government is not about political issues, there was no mention of combating terrorism in the communique.
Just as in other SCO joint statements, India did not validate the collective endorsement by the other member states of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
In his remarks, Naidu conveyed India’s two key proposals to create special working group on startups and innovations and an expert group on traditional medicine.
“While noting the proposals for the establishment of the Special Working Group on Innovation and Startups (Republic of India), a mechanism for the meeting of the Heads of bodies to combat economic crimes (Kyrgyz Republic) and the Special Working Group on Poverty Reduction (Islamic Republic of Pakistan), they consider it important to ensure their consideration in established order,” said the joint communique.
When asked at a post-meeting media briefing about whether tensions between India and Pakistan would impact cooperation on SCO initiatives, MEA secretary Vikas Swarup stated that it was “up to them”.
“SCO charter has a provision that one country cannot hold up cooperation in areas and allows member countries which are interested to take it forward with the exclusion of one country that is opposing,” he said.
He also asserted Article 2 of the SCO charter prohibits bilateral issues to be raised in SCO forums. Referring to meeting of SCO national security advisors where India walked out, Swarup said that “we all have seen that raising bilateral issues only serves to vitiate the atmosphere and holds up concrete cooperation in a whole host of areas”.
“As far as we are concerned, we have scrupulously adhered to this provision of the SCO charter. We expect other countries to also do the same. If countries come with this mindset them surely we can find common ground for mutual cooperation,” added Swarup.
When asked about Pakistan’s level of representation at the SCO forum, Swarup claimed that the question should be put to Islamabad about their commitment to the forum.
“As far as we are concerned, we chaired the meeting and India has upgraded our level, from Prime Minister to Vice President,” he added.