Future of SCO 'full of hope', official says

JIN DING/CHINA DAILY At a farewell event held in Beijing on Tuesday for Zhang Ming, the outgoing secretary-general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the senior Chinese diplomat and his colleagues from SCO member states expressed their strong faith in the group's future growth and solidarity. Liu Bin, China's assistant foreign minister, said, "We are ready to take this opportunity to act on the presidency slogan, 'Upholding the Shanghai Spirit: SCO on the Move', and join hands with all member states to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders." Zhang, the outgoing SCO secretary-general, said he expects the group to be more practical, deliver more tangible benefits to the people, keep pace with the times through steadfast modernization and reform, and "further improve its efficiency, dynamism and the capacity of implementation". Zhang noted that in the past three years, the group has explored the establishment of an SCO financing mechanism by removing traditional bottlenecks that hinder cooperation, and has actively facilitated its modernization and reform.