Interview with SCO Secretary-General: Vladimir Norov talks with CGTN on Belt & Road Initiative
Updated 22:40, 24-Apr-2019
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The head of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is among several dignitaries attending the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing next week. CGTN's Su Yuting asked him how SCO members can use the Chinese initiative to boost connections.
SU YUTING BEIJING Q1: "Secretary-General, good to have you on CGTN. The bedrock of the Belt and Road Initiative is interconnectivity, especially the connections of the people's hearts. What role does the SCO play in promoting people-to-people exchanges?"
VLADIMIR NOROV SCO SECRETARY-GENERAL "We have a special agreement about the cooperation in culture. And we have lots of exhibitions in our countries. People communication plays an important role. The first is that the initiative of China's leadership, for example, in 2013, President Xi Jinping in the Summit of Bishkek announced about the creating of China Special Committee of the SCO for long-standing good cooperation and partnership, which is fulfilling the role of public diplomacy. The Belt and Road play an important role. They revive this historical silk road where the people travel to each other without a barrier, the people freely move toward each other. That's why we are now focusing on the liberalization of all procedures, of trade and tourism."
SU YUTING BEIJING Q2: "The international marathon of the SCO will be held both in Kunming, Yunnan province and also in Kyrgyzstan as well. Could you please give us more details on this event and 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 "Marathon SCO this year will be in Kunming, that's the fourth one on December 8th. And this year on May 11th, there will be marathon in Kyrgyz Republic in a very beautiful place in Issyk-Kul Lake. 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 BEIJING Q3: "It just remind us 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 to 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 rise 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 any cooperation should be as a traffic in two directions, the benefit should be for both sides, and then cooperation will be successful and very attractive, and China's leadership promoting such cooperation. One of them is the principle which strongly in any level on any meeting that the Chinese side is outlining. That's why the task and goals and the principles of the Belt and Road, coincide with the SCO's goals and tasks, and its principles. We are now in cooperation with Chinese special agencies, and financial institutions, and some private companies and regions of China, we are trying to find a way to make such cooperation that's successful and mutually beneficial."