On December 8, 2015, the Foreign Ministry held a briefing for Chinese and foreign media on the 14th Meeting of the Council of Heads (Prime Ministers) of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping introduced relevant information and answered questions from the journalists.

Cheng Guoping introduced that the 14th Meeting of the Council of Heads (Prime Ministers) of Member States of the SCO will be held in Zhengzhou of Henan Province from December 14 to 15. Heads of governments of the SOC member states and observer states as well as relevant international organizations will attend the meeting at invitation. President Xi Jinping will hold a group meeting with Prime Ministers of the SCO member states. The meeting will by tradition consist of such events as a small-scale talk among Prime Ministers of the member states, the large-scale talk among Prime Ministers of the member states and observer states, group photo taking, signing ceremony and joint press conference. Premier Li Keqiang will chair the meeting.

The meeting, as an important diplomatic event in China this year and also another important meeting of the SCO after its Ufa Summit this July, is of great significance to comprehensively elevating the level of SCO all-round cooperation and to deepening China's relations with relevant countries.

After 14 years of development, the SCO has yielded fruitful cooperative results in security, economy, people-to-people and cultural and other various fields, taken important step in institutional construction and become an important platform for its member states to jointly safeguard security and stability and promote common development. After the Ufa Summit this year, the SCO has entered a new development stage. The SCO member states adopted the SCO DevelopmentStrategyTowards2025, charting course for the next-stage development of the SCO. In the meantime, affected by international and regional situations, countries in the region are all facing multiple challenges including mounting downward economic pressure and growing security threats posed by terrorism, therefore, the SCO bears a more pressing task to provide security guarantee and boost economic development for its member states. In such a context, the meeting shoulders a vital mission to clarify how the SCO will further tap potential, jointly create opportunities and deal with the challenges under the new situation. The meeting will make a series of important plans and deployments, so as to play a strong guiding role in elevating the level of SCO multilateral practical cooperation and solving existing problems as well as to offer assistance for the member states to jointly seek security, stability and development transition.

Upon consultation, the member states will take "studying the status quo, prospects and development measures of cooperation in economy, trade, investment, finance, transportation as well as people-to-people and cultural engagement under the SCO framework " as the main topic of the meeting. Heads of all governments will, on the basis of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative and in combination with international and regional situations, comprehensively analyze the opportunities and challenges in deepening the SCO all-round cooperation and exchange views on promoting regional economic cooperation.

The meeting will issue a joint communiqué, review the SCO's achievements in all-round practical cooperation in the past year, and chart course for the work in the next step. The Prime Ministers will sign a series of resolutions concerning all-round cooperation and internal work of the SCO and witness the signing of documents such as the SCO member states' customs cooperation plan from 2016 to 2021. They will also release a statement on regional economic cooperation, reiterating that all parties will actively support implementing such regional cooperation initiatives as the Silk Road Economic Belt, advance synergy of construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt with all countries' development strategies and with regional integration mechanisms such as the Eurasian Economic Union, and promote regional cooperation for more in-depth development by prioritizing cooperation in such areas as trade facilitation, production capacity, infrastructure construction and finance and actively encourage the observer states and dialogue partners to take part in the cooperation.

As the host country, China expects to work with all parties to, on the basis of the Silk Road Economic Belt and other regional cooperation initiatives, deeply discuss new concepts and new measures on deepening the SCO all-round cooperation and make plans and deployments on top priority fields and pressing tasks of promoting regional cooperation under the new situation so as to provide impetus for the development and stability of the member states. It is believed that the member states will further pool consensus at the meeting and promote the SCO all-round cooperation to a higher level with more united actions and more effective coordination, so as to inject more positive energy into the peace and development of the region and the world at large.