China supports the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to hold dialogue and carry out exchanges and cooperation with other countries and international organizations, Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Thursday.

Addressing the ongoing SCO summit in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, Hu said opening-up and deepening cooperation with other countries and international organizations will help SCO build a sound external environment conducive to its development.

"We will stick to peaceful cooperation as well as multilateralism when concerns from other parts of the world towards SCO, especially towards Central Asia, are increasing," Hu said.

"We will support all activities that benefit regional peace, stability and economic progress and will help preserve the solidarity and security of its member countries," he stressed.

The president went on to say that China supports SCO to start at an early date substantial cooperation with its observer countries, which include Mongolia, Pakistan, India and Iran, and encourages the group to carry out extensive cooperation with all countries and international organizations which agree to SCO's doctrines and principles so as to safeguard world peace and push for a fairer and more reasonable international order.

President Hu also called on SCO members to expand cultural and educational cooperation and facilitate youth exchanges.

Hu proposed that SCO members learn from one another and promote equal exchanges between different cultures so as to consolidate the social basis for the generations-long friendship between SCO members.

The Chinese president said half of the world's population, which covers more than 300 ethnic groups, lives in SCO member and observer countries and has created splendid and age-old cultures in history.

"We should learn from one another's advanced aspects to overcome our shortcomings and make common progress," he said.

SCO member countries should engage in all-around exchanges and cooperation in such fields as science, culture, education, sports and healthcare, and make special efforts to create conditions for the exchanges between their youths, Hu said.

Apart from other scholarship programs set up under bilateral agreements, China will establish a separate scholarship project to sponsor 20 students from its five fellow SCO members -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to study in China every year.

The Chinese president also suggested that SCO members take turns hosting exchange workshops for young students. To implement the initiative, China will invite more than 50 undergraduates and middle school students to come to south China's tropic resort Hainan Island next year to spend their winter holidays, Hu said.

He hoped SCO members would actively promote the teaching of one another's language and cultures, and said China will provide more teachers and text books for the teaching of Chinese in other SCO members and hoped that Chinese teachers and students will get due support for the teaching and learning of Russian, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Tajiki and Uzbek.

As China is going to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in its capital city Beijing, Hu welcomed SCO members to take part in Olympics-related cultural events and vowed to provide convenience for them to show their cultures during the Olympic Games.

President Hu promised to the member states of the SCO that China will promote regional economic cooperation for greater mutual benefit and all-win results.

Only by adhering to common development can the economic foundation of the SCO be consolidated, Hu said.

Hu urged all member states to take advantage of geographical vicinity and economic compatibility to tap their own potentials and achieve common development.

He also suggested that the SCO improve the legal framework of all member states for further cooperation, speed up the promulgation of regulations on road transport facilitation and multilateral treaties to encourage and protect mutual investments, implement the guidelines on multilateral economic cooperation, and carry out exemplary projects in energy, transport and telecom, as well as other areas.

Against the backdrop of globalization, all member states should enhance the international cooperation within the framework of SCO, expand external economic and technological exchanges and strengthen cooperation with the concerned international financial organizations to compete on the international market and benefit from such a drive, Hu said.

China is willing to take concrete measures to push forward the SCO's regional cooperation and promptly implement projects featuring multi-participation and mutual benefits, he said.

Areas such as transportation, telecommunication and energy are given priority on the agenda for SCO cooperation. Hu vowed to continue to provide necessary credit and financial support to the multilateral and bilateral projects in these areas.

New treaty lauded

The Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation which is to be signed by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will be an important milestone in the development process of the organization, President Hu said.

The treaty "confirms to the long-cherished wish of peoples from all SCO member states to ensure friendship for generations to come and guarantee peace forever," Hu said, adding that it "will give a vigorous impetus to the development of the SCO."

After six years of development, "the SCO has become an effective mechanism for member states to maintain common interests and promote mutually beneficial cooperation," Hu said. He added that the organization has become an important force to maintain long-lasting peace and promote common development.

During the past year after the Shanghai summit, the cooperation among member states has registered further progress with enhanced political trust, deepened security cooperation, closer economic cooperation, and increased international influence.

"All these results have consolidated the foundation for the long-term and steady development of the SCO," Hu said.

Hu pointed out that there were still certain unharmonious and unstable elements in the world. "Unilateralism and power politics still exist, traditional and non-traditional threat is still severe, and economic globalization failed to bring benefits to the majority of developing countries," he said.

Even in the region of SCO members, certain interference can still be seen, such as terrorism, extremism, separatism, drug trafficking and rampant trans-national crime. "All these are detrimental to the common development of the SCO and harmony in the region," Hu said.

To ensure the development of the organization, Hu urged all sides to adhere to good-neighborliness and friendship and to earnestly implement the treaty in an effort to consolidate the political basis for the SCO.

"The most serious challenge we face is that whether all member states can effectively maintain their sovereignty, security and development," said Hu, stressing that such a matter is of "vital importance."

He urged all SCO members to coordinate with and support one another in line with the spirit of the treaty. "No matter what happened, we should proceed from regional peace and stability, the SCO's long-term development and good-neighborliness and friendship among member states and properly deal with and resolve problems in accordance with the principles set forth in the SCO's legal documents," he said.

Leaders from Afghanistan and Turkemanistan also attended the summit as special guests of the host nation, as well as representatives of international and regional organizations, including the United Nations.

The summit was the seventh meeting among SCO top leaders since it was founded in June 2001.

In each year's roundtable summit, leaders of the SCO, which now groups China, Russia, and central Asia's Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, review the work in the past year and blueprint plans on political, economic, security and people-to-people cooperation.

(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2007)