[Photo/China Daily]

SCO Forum carries forward 'Shanghai Spirit', promotes friendly cooperation

Kamila Karamanova left her motherland Kazakhstan in 2009 to study at China's Shandong University due to her profound interest in the country since her school years. That decision changed her life.

In China, she not only improved her Chinese language proficiency, but also learned knowledge about foreign trade, and actively participated in international exchanges and cooperation projects.

In 2013, when she heard about the Belt and Road Initiative at her Nazarbayev University, Karamanova was so excited because she knew the initiative means wider, deeper and higher-level international cooperation in various fields between China and other involved countries, and will be a "bridge of friendship and prosperity between China and Kazakhstan". She wanted to become a builder of the "bridge".

Now a manager at Shandong Silk Road Zhongheng Industrial Investment Group, a trading company based in Shandong's provincial capital Jinan, Karamanova has witnessed great changes in the country, as well as the unprecedented height of China-Kazakhstan ties, which are "a good example of good-neighborliness, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation", she said.

She shared her experience at the SCO Forum on People-to-People Friendship and the Forum on Friendship Cities, held from Wednesday to Friday in Qingdao, Shandong province. The event attracted about 400 representatives from governments, international organizations, embassies and companies from China and abroad, including Deputy Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic Edil Baisalov and Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian House of Representatives Valeri Mitskevich.

With the theme of "Carrying Forward the Shanghai Spirit and Promoting Friendly Cooperation", the two parallel forums aimed to promote mutual learning between civilizations and people-to-people exchanges while boosting good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation among members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

"Guided by the 'Shanghai Spirit', we will make good use of the forums as a bridge and bond to promote non-governmental exchanges, deepen sub-national economic and trade cooperation, strengthen people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and strive to achieve more practical results," Lin Wu, Party secretary of Shandong province, said at the opening ceremony of the forums.

Shen Yueyue, vice-chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairperson of the Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation Commission of the SCO, said the organization prioritizes friendliness and cooperation, and is paving a friendly path that meets each country's development needs.

"We should become practitioners of the 'Shanghai Spirit', inheritors of friendliness for generations and promoters of common development, tolerance and mutual learning," Shen said.

Cui Li, vice-chairperson of the Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation Commission of the SCO, said that over the past 10 years, with strong support and joint efforts of all parties, the commission and its partners have adhered to the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and contributed to the international community a new model for nongovernmental cooperation in the SCO, which features fully implemented initiatives and consensus by state leaders, expanded cooperation fields, and mutual assistance and joint efforts by member states.

"We are ready to establish close cooperation with non-governmental friendship institutions in other SCO countries through mutual visits, signing of agreements, organizing training seminars and co-hosting activities, so as to jointly promote the cause of non-governmental friendship," Cui said.

The event proposed in its Qingdao Initiative to strengthen non-governmental interactions and friendship cities' cooperation, and experience exchanges and cooperation in poverty alleviation.