BEIJING, December 2 (INP): Leaders of the SCO's member States at the 19th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government issued a joint communique and adopted cooperation documents in such fields as economy and trade.

Overall, the meeting held via video link on November 30 yielded good outcomes and sent positive signals.

This was stated here by the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Hua Chunying while briefing the media persons about the SCO's meeting.

The leaders during the meeting were agreed that they should continue to live up to the "Shanghai spirit" in deepening anti-epidemic cooperation.

They all spoke highly of the collective efforts taken by the SCO countries to help each other and overcome difficulties since the outbreak of the pandemic, and agreed to further carry forward the "Shanghai spirit", work together to combat the virus, jointly oppose the stigmatization of the pandemic, and support the World Health Organization in playing its due role.

As per joint communique, they decided that they should persist in taking a package of measures to promote economic recovery. China pointed out that all parties should steadily promote the various SCO cooperation agenda, create a safe and stable development environment, give full play to the leading role of scientific and technological innovation, and create a better future for SCO in the post-COVID period.

It says, China also actively advocated upgrading the level of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation in the region, jointly building the Belt and Road, and tapping the potential of digital economic cooperation.

China also announced specific cooperation initiatives. We will publish an index of our trade with other SCO members, accelerate the development of the SCO demonstration base for exchanges and training on agricultural technologies, and carry out poverty reduction training with other SCO countries.

All parties agreed that promoting integrated and interconnected development in keeping with the general trend of the world economy is a sure path to economic recovery of regional countries.

They also agreed to deepen cooperation on trade facilitation, connectivity, scientific and technological innovation, finance and agriculture, which will help the steady resumption of work and production.

The communique says, we should advocate openness and inclusiveness and endorse multilateralism. All parties agreed that unilateralism and protectionism seriously hinder the process of economic globalization, stressing that openness and cooperation is an irreversible trend of the times, and they are willing to actively safeguard multilateralism and free trade.

The leaders of the Member States pointed out that the SCO, as an influential and responsible part of current international relations, is committed to consolidating multilateralism and supporting the multilateral trading system with WTO rules at its core,

At the meeting, Premier Li Keqiang, together with the heads of all participating delegations, exchanged in-depth views on the implementation of the outcomes reached at the recent SCO virtual summit and the strengthening of SCO cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, investment, and people-to-people exchanges in the face of the challenge of COVID-19, and reached broad consensus,.

INP/javed