2009-10-17 CRI Roundup

Hello and welcome to this edition of CRI Roundup brought to you by China Radio International. I'm Wenjie in Beijing.

The eighth prime ministers' meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states held in Beijing this week has achieved fruitful results in working out joint measures to increase economic cooperation.

Meanwhile, China and Russia have agreed to bolster their energy, political and economic ties with a package of deals signed during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing. So stay tuned.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, is a regional security group that includes the leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The eighth SCO prime ministers' meeting began on Wednesday in Beijing and released a joint communique.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao chaired the meeting in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. His counterparts from the SCO member states as well as representatives from the SCO observer nations and Afghanistan were in attendance.

Wen Jiabao said the joint communique reiterated that the SCO member states would carry out active cooperation in various fields.

"All the attendees set down joint measures to increase economic cooperation, cope with the global financial crisis, and ensure steady economic growth. All prime ministers at 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 markets and mutual investments."

Sun Zhuangzhi, an economist from China's Academy of Social Sciences, said the joint communiqué is of great significance for member states in fighting the economic recession.

"It includes measures on how to deal with the economic challenges through financial cooperation, and has reviewed the follow-up implementation of agreements signed at previous meetings. In addition, the SCO member states have expanded their cooperation in some fields. It shows their confidence in multilateral trade cooperation among member countries since the world economy has plummeted."

Apart from attending the SCO meeting, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin joined his Chinese counterparts for discussions on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Russian relations.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao lauded the countries' bilateral ties as a role model to follow in building up relations with neighboring countries. He said China is willing to work with Russia to strive for greater achievements in the future.

"Bilateral relations have become stable and mature since the forging of diplomatic ties 60 years ago. And particularly after the establishment of the Russia-China strategic cooperative partnership in 1996, the level of political mutual trust and strategic and practical cooperation between the two countries has been improved continuously and yielded many achievements, which have positively influenced the world's peace and development."
　
China and Russia signed a package of deals during Putin's visit to further bolster energy, political and economic ties between the two countries.

Jiang Yi, a researcher at China's Academy of Social Sciences, said these agreements indicate that the economic cooperation between the two countries has progressed from simple commodity exchanges to a greater and more extensive level.

"According to these agreements, we can see that both China and Russia are promoting bilateral investments in the energy field. Besides commodity exchanges, the two sides will also cooperate in labor services and technology. Following this trend, the two countries will have closer economic ties and an improved cooperation system."

The deals include a framework agreement on Russia's natural gas exports to China, a memorandum of understanding on a high-speed train, and an agreement on mutual notification of ballistic missile and carrier-rocket launches.

Jiang says closer economic ties will facilitate the bilateral political partnership between the two countries and could greatly influence the global economic and political structure.

"After the global financial crisis, the world's political and economic pattern is being restructured. And the Sino-Russian cooperation will attract the world's attention and have a significant impact on such a transformational period."

Wen and Putin also issued awards to the winners of a Russian singing contest for Chinese singers and attended the closing ceremony of the half-year-long "Year of Russian Language" program in China.

Putin said he was very pleased with the event.

"The most impressive thing for me is that people of different ages in China have been interested in Russian culture. What's more, I am very pleased to see young people participate in the competition."

And with that, we conclude this edition of  CRI Roundup. If you have any comments or suggestions, or would like to listen to any of our other programs, you can visit our website at crienglish.com.

I'm Wenjie in Beijing.

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