Reporter: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was founded on the principles of defending regional peace, security and stability and to ensure that people in the region will have a better life. Therefore, promoting economic and trade cooperation has been a key mission for the regional organization.

In the last summit, presidents of the six nations proposed the establishment of a non-governmental organization, the entrepreneurs’ committee, consisting of major businesses from these countries.

The committee was officially launched in Shanghai Wednesday. All the presidents of the six SCO member states met with representatives from the Entrepreneurs’ Committee. Chinese President Hu Jintao described the launch of the committee as a key event in the history of SCO.

"The establishment of the SCO Entrepreneurs' Committee builds a very good platform for closer exchanges and cooperation between businesses of the six SCO economies. The factors of sound economic development, complementary economic structure, improved trade and investment environment, and opening markets have created good conditions and opportunities for regional economic cooperation."

The Chinese President expressed the belief that active participation of the entrepreneurs will make the SCO render substantial results in economic cooperation and will bring more tangible benefits to the peoples of the member countries.

Trade among the six nations totaled nearly 38 billion US dollars last year, 2 times more than that in 2001, when the SCO was established.

As of now, investment between SCO members has already surged to 15 billion US dollars, covering projects in oil and gas exploration, transportation, telecommunications, electricity, construction materials and the chemical industry.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev also expressed the hope that the business people will work together to promote overall prosperity in the region.

"Our ultimate goal is to guarantee regional social and economic development, as well as to improve people's living standards. Companies and banks from the member states should concentrate on big cooperative projects. And we'll provide government support in this regard."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said economic cooperation is a key basis for international relations. Through trade cooperation, all the member states will strengthen their relations on the tenets of mutual respect, mutual benefits and equality.

"I believe, economic and trade cooperation will become another important factor to further the unity of our organization. We have already established very good cooperative projects. It's a good beginning. So we should seize the opportunity. The businesspeople from the SCO members are willing to further their cooperation in energy and investment."

At present, the SCO members are developing 127 joint projects in the field of trade and economic cooperation. Some 2 billion U.S. dollars worth of business contracts and loan agreements are expected to be signed at the Summit. The deals will include a highway project connecting Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, two high-voltage electricity lines in Tajikistan, a cement plant in Kyrgyzstan, and a hydropower station in Kazakhstan.

Yu Guangzhou, vice-Minister of Commerce in China, said earlier that the SCO has instituted a road-map for regional economic cooperation. Its purpose is to facilitate trade and investment, deepen economic cooperation and realize the free flow of goods, capital, services and technology.

Xiaoyu, CRI News, Shanghai.