A reporter interacts with a humanoid robot at the SCO Summit press center in Tianjin on August 31, 2025. Photo: Yin Yeping

Multiple Chinese localities including Lianyungang in East China's Jiangsu Province, Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality and East China's Shandong Province have accelerated cooperation with Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries in various fields, including logistics innovation, industrial cooperation and cultural exchanges. Experts said on Sunday the fruitful results reflect the vitality of SCO economic and trade cooperation, noting that the influence of the SCO will continue to expand, demonstrating new developments, breakthroughs and momentum, which will contribute to global economic stability and prosperity.

A dedicated train loaded with 50 containers of photovoltaic (PV) support brackets​departed from the China-Kazakhstan (Lianyungang) Logistics Cooperation Base on Friday, heading to Navoi in Uzbekistan​​.

This marks the first time Lianyungang has organized a dedicated train shipment since the launch of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan rail-road intermodal freight train​​ in 2022. The 1,156 tons of PV support brackets carried by this train will be used in the construction of Uzbekistan's ​​national PV energy storage project, the Port of Lianyungang told the Global Times on Sunday.

"As a crucial component of the southern corridor of the China-Europe freight train and the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan rail-road intermodal transport system helps improve the ​New Eurasian Land Bridge transportation network, and further strengthens its role and strategic status in the global logistics system," a person who works at the port said.

In June, the Chongqing-SCO Economic and Trade Cooperation Conference was held in the municipal city. The event attracted over 200 participants, including nearly 40 enterprises from SCO member countries including Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, with focuses on sectors such as new energy vehicles, agricultural products, agricultural machinery, electromechanical equipment and food. The event resulted in tentative deals totaling nearly 500 million yuan ($70.11 million), according to local government website.

Leveraging the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area, known as SCODA, Shandong Province has established ​​105 pairs of sister-city or friendly cooperative relationships with SCO member countries. This figure now accounts for 15 percent of the province's total sister-city partnerships, optimizing the structure of Shandong's foreign exchanges and cooperation, Chen Baiwei, a local official said at a press conference in North China's Tianjin on Friday.

"In recent years under the SCO framework, Chinese cities and regions have leveraged their advantages in agriculture, technology and other sectors to achieve tangible outcomes through industrial parks, pilot research and development (R&D) initiatives, and bilateral cooperation with SCO member states," Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

This showcases the sustaining vitality of SCO economic and trade cooperation, and improved interconnectivity will effectively facilitate ​​trade​​ and ​​bolster the resilience of industrial and supply chain networks​​ within the SCO, Qian said.

In 2024, China's trade with other SCO members, observer states and dialogue partners reached a historic high of $890 billion, or 14.4 percent of the country's total foreign trade, official data showed, which underscores the vibrant vitality and broad prospects of regional trade development under the SCO framework.

"Primarily born to address security concerns, the SCO has, after over two decades' development, grown into a comprehensive regional organization representing nearly half of the world's population. Today, economic and trade cooperation as well as people-to-people exchanges under the framework are seeing rapid development," Cui Heng, a scholar at the Shanghai-based China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation told the Global Times on Sunday.

At a time when the world is witnessing rising protectionism and unilateralism, the SCO offers a valuable platform for cooperation among countries beyond the Eurasia continent, Cui said, noting that China, by joining hands with all parties of the SCO, continuously injects precious certainty into global economic stability and prosperity.

Looking ahead, the SCO is expected to expand regional cooperation to cover more sectors, with green energy cooperation - particularly photovoltaic (PV) technology, where China holds comparative advantages - emerging as a key focus. In addition, cross-border e-commerce will also likely expand to boost regional trade exchanges, Qian said.