The Shanghai Cooperation Organization's Secretary-General, Vladimir Norov, will attend the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing next week. CGTN's Su Yuting sat down with him and asked him how the SCO members can increase connections between people through the Belt and Road Initiative.

SU YUTING CGTN "The international marathon of the SCO will be held both in Kunming, Yunnan province and also in Kyrgyzstan as well. Could you please provide us with more examples of the people-to-people exchanges that the SCO has been taken for the Belt and Road?"

VLADIMIR NOROV SCO SECRETARY-GENERAL "Those Marathon now fulfill an important role, for strengthening mutual respect and mutual understanding, and for connecting our people with each other. The Shanghai Spirit which is used actively in Marathon: it's not restricting, they are uniting."

SU YUTING CGTN "It just reminds us of the joint declaration that signed in last June during the Qingdao SCO summit, that it emphasized the importance of sports as the major factor in promoting people-to-people exchanges. And you once also said that the Belt and Road Initiative aimed at deepening mutual trust and enhancing common development. How can the SCO members expand cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative?"

VLADIMIR NOROV SCO SECRETARY-GENERAL "By active participation in the Belt and Road Initiative, our countries can raise its export capacity and China is open and it's promoting this. At the same time, by actively participating in the Belt and Road, our countries can very successfully use the infrastructure which is to modernize and to develop new transport communication linkage. And benefits for both sides. And any cooperation should be as traffic in two directions, and China's leadership promoting such cooperation. The principle of common developments, it is as the Belt and Road, and the same in Shanghai spirit and framework of the SCO."