“After Covid-19 pandemic, world is facing challenge of economic recovery,” PM Narendra Modi said at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meet at Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
The PM is currently at the summit along with President of China Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
This is the first time Modi is meeting Xi Jinping since the border standoff between India and China escalated following the deadly clash in Galwan Valley in June 2020.
“India supports mutual trust and cooperation among SCO countries,” Modi said.
“Covid-19 and Ukraine situation resulted in hurdles in global supply chain, resulting in food and energy security crisis. SCO should try to create a resilient supply chain in our region,” added the Pm, who will hold bilateral ties with Putin and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit.
“For resilient supply chain, better connectivity and giving transit rights to each other will be important. We are making progress in making India a manufacturing hub,” Modi added.
“India's economy is expected to grow at 7.5 per cent this year, which will be highest among world's major economies. There is lot of focus on proper use of technology in our people-centric development model,” he said. Boosting trade and energy supply, regional security challenges and more is expected to be discussed at the summit.
China's Jinping in the meantime said that the nation will support India for its SCO presidency in 2023. He also added that China will train 2,000 law enforcement personnel of the member nations over the next five years. He said, “countries should work on preventing foreign forces from instigating "colour revolutions" and repeated a call for all countries to stop "zero-sum games and bloc politics," Reuters reported. He extended an invitation to countries to sign up for China's Global Security Initiative.
-- With PTI inputs