Member states of SCO see benefits of greater economic connectivity

Participants attend the SCO Industrial and Investment Expo 2026 exhibition in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 25. IGOR KOVALENKO/EPA

As westward economic and trade cooperation with Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states deepens and southbound freight volumes along the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor continue to surge, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is demonstrating robust vitality and resilience, weaving a highly integrated trade network across Eurasia, experts said.

The westward momentum is underpinned by strengthening economic and trade relations within the SCO framework, which have served as a powerful engine for the rapid economic development of its member states.

Zhang Yongjun, a researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, noted that this year marks the 25th anniversary of the SCO's founding, and the organization's annual summit is held in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Since its establishment, the SCO has played an active role in advancing economic and trade ties not only among its member states but also with observer states and dialogue partners, providing a strong impetus to regional economic growth, he said.

"Trade growth among SCO member states carries greater momentum and contributes significantly to global trade expansion," Zhang said. "When the SCO was formally established in 2001, intra-member trade was modest. According to OECD data, goods trade among the current 10 SCO members stood at roughly $38 billion in 2001. By 2024, that figure had exceeded $650 billion — more than 17 times the 2001 level. Over the same period, the member states' total goods trade with the rest of the world rose to about nine times its 2001 level, meaning the growth rate of intra-member trade was nearly double that of their trade with the rest of the world."

Based on performance in 2025 and the first half of 2026, Zhang projected that intra-member goods trade among the 10 nations is on track to reach approximately $720 billion in 2026, roughly 19 times the volume recorded in the SCO's founding year.

Zhang attributed the rapid expansion in the foreign trade of SCO member states to the group's enlargement and its broadening circle of partners. From six founding members, the SCO has grown to encompass 10 member states, two observer states and 15 dialogue partners, building a larger and more closely knit economic and trade network.

The organization has also established a range of nongovernmental cooperation mechanisms, including the SCO Business Council and the SCO Interbank Consortium, which have facilitated economic and trade cooperation among members, as well as with observer states and dialogue partners. Furthermore, the SCO has established cooperative ties with the United Nations and its specialized agencies, alongside other international and regional bodies such as the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, the Economic Cooperation Organization, or ECO, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, and the Eurasian Economic Commission.

Zhang also noted that since the SCO's inception, member states have achieved rapid economic growth through foreign trade development and foreign investment attraction. Income levels among the 10 SCO member states have steadily risen, with countries transitioning from low-income to lower-middle-income, and from lower-middle to upper-middle-income status.

In recent years, economic and trade cooperation among member states has further strengthened its role in driving economic development. Kyrgyzstan, the host of the SCO summit this year, for instance, posted an economic growth rate of 11.1 percent in 2025, making it one of the world's fastest-growing economies, and the country is expected to maintain robust growth this year.

Foreign trade of SCO member states has also grown rapidly. Based on WTO data, Zhang calculated that the total goods import and export volume of the current 10 SCO members stood at $859.5 billion in 2001. By 2025, that figure had surged to $8.87 trillion, a 10.3-fold increase that significantly outpaced the global trade growth of 4.2 times over the same period.

Based on trends from the first half of this year, the total trade volume of the 10 member states is expected to surpass $9.5 trillion in 2026 and may even approach the $10 trillion mark — representing more than 11 times the volume recorded the year the organization was founded.

This westward connectivity across Eurasia is being seamlessly complemented by the southward expansion of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. Together, the two routes form a comprehensive logistics network linking Eurasia and ASEAN, with China's central and western regions serving as a strategic nexus.

This synergy has driven significant growth in the southward corridor, according to data from China Railway Nanning Group. In the first half of this year, the corridor handled 660,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, of goods, averaging 110,000 TEUs per month.

Freight volume in the second quarter rose 3.6 percent quarter-on-quarter, reflecting sustained robust market demand. To accommodate surging demand, China Railway Nanning Group is accelerating key infrastructure upgrades, including the construction of the second rail line for the Qinzhou-Fangchenggang section and the route linking Qinzhou East to Qinzhou Port in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Tang Qiang, dean of the School of Geographical Sciences at Southwest University, noted that the corridor has improved freight transportation efficiency and expanded its coverage of goods through innovative multimodal transport. For example, the outbound route from Chongqing to Qinzhou Port takes only 48 hours via rail-sea intermodal transport.

Compared with traditional river-sea intermodal transportation via the Yangtze River's main trunk line to eastern ports, the journey time is reduced by 83 percent, and the distance is more than halved from nearly 2,000 kilometers to less than 1,000 km, Tang said. This effectively breaks the geographical constraints that have long hindered the western region's access to rivers and the sea.

Such seamless connectivity is playing a vital role in stabilizing industrial and supply chains. In the first half of this year, 72,000 TEUs of raw materials were shipped via Qinzhou Port East Station from ASEAN countries, up 49.4 percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, exports of automobile and motorcycle parts manufactured in Chongqing and Chengdu via rail-sea intermodal transport reached 38,000 TEUs, up 89.9 percent year-on-year. To date, the southward corridor's freight categories have expanded to 1,362, covering 76 cities across 18 provincial-level regions in China and reaching 593 ports in 128 countries and regions worldwide, further cementing the global reach of the Belt and Road Initiative, data showed.