Russia's Putin and China's Wen call for economic stimulus

Nov 7, 2011, 17:12 GMT

Moscow - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called Monday for major investment in infrastructure to stimulate economic growth throughout Central Asia, at a regional conference devoted to security and trade.

Putin and Wen issued their appeals in keynote speeches at a conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the city of St Petersburg, which also was attended by the other member states, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, news agency Interfax reported.

Putin said SCO member states should work together to make the group a leading force in the world economy and international security.

'We must bring to fruition our ambitious goal of turning our organization into one of the basic agencies for constructing the global economic and political structure,' he said.

'This is especially important as the world economy finds itself in difficulty,' Putin said.

SCO member states should focus their efforts on improving regional infrastructure, Putin said. He named a 2-billion-dollar power transmission project as a key priority, and said Russia was ready to contribute 500 million dollars to it.

The security situation in Afghanistan and illegal narcotics trading were among the biggest threats to the development of SCO-member economies, he added.

China's Wen said in turn that a top SCO priority should be the development of Central Asia's energy and transport infrastructure, particularly roads and pipelines.

'We support the idea of construction and modernization of roads in the area of the SCO,' Wen said, adding that China would offer low-cost credits for this purpose.

Participant nations should use their own currencies and direct payments for bilateral transactions, instead of using major international currencies, he added.

Putin dismissed the eurozone's ongoing financial difficulties, saying the SCO members should concentrate on their own economies. He made clear that European Union countries in difficult economic straits could not count on price cuts on Russian gas.

'It is in our interest that problems in the eurozone are reduced, but we are not going to link that with energy,' Putin said.

Iran, India, Mongolia and Pakistan took part in the SCO conferences as observer states, while representatives from Afghanistan and Turkmenistan had guest status, Interfax news agency reported.

The US and Turkey were considering participating in future conferences, the report said.

The SCO was founded in 2001 as a intergovernmental structure for Central Asian states to coordinate security and economic policy.

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