The future of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) depends on whether members can translate consensus into action and plans into reality, President Hu Jintao said in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on Tuesday.

"As long as we make implementation the focus of our future work and seek concrete results in deepening and expanding cooperation and realizing targets, the SCO will surely be full of vitality and bear abundant fruit," Hu told an SCO summit.

The organization, founded in Shanghai in June 2001, comprises China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Mongolia became an observer in 2004, and India, Iran and Pakistan were accepted as observers at the current summit.

The development of the SCO has entered an important stage and members should strive to translate the organization's potential into actual results and deal with the challenges of complex international and regional changes, said Hu.

"Without stability, there can be no talk of any development," Hu said, urging member countries and the whole region to promote the implementation of documents and agreements on fighting extremism, separatism and terrorism, and conduct effective information exchange and step up research on the establishment of emergency mechanisms. 

On economic cooperation, Hu asked for more efforts to implement a multilateral plan and work for the early establishment of a banking union. He also called for exploring bilateral and multilateral cooperation modes that involve both governments and enterprises.

Hu urged for contact and cooperation between the SCO and international financial institutions to facilitate deeper economic cooperation, and said China has decided to offer even more preferential terms for the US$900 million-buyer's export credit promised to other SCO members in Tashkent last year.

On human resource cooperation, Hu said members should boost collaboration in culture, disaster relief, education, tourism and media, adding that China would set aside a special fund to train 1,500 people from other member countries within the next three years.

Hu said Central Asia, with its unique strategic location and cultural heritage, plays an increasingly important role in world affairs and that recent developments in the region have aroused concern in the international community.

"Central Asian countries are the masters of the affairs of the countries and the region," Hu said. "People of all Central Asian countries are entitled to independently choose the roads of development that conform to their actual conditions, and they have the wisdom and capability to adequately handle their internal and regional affairs."

An SCO declaration issued at the end of the summit said the leaders of member states pledged continued support for the international coalition's anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan.

However, as large-scale military operations against terrorism have come to an end in Afghanistan, they said, it is necessary for coalition parties to set a deadline for the use of member states' facilities and for their military presence in these countries.

(Xinhua News Agency July 6, 2005)