PM Modi reaches Russia’s capital Ufa

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif will lead the Pakistan delegation to the Meeting of the Heads of States Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ( SCO) in Ufa, Russia, on July 9-10, officials said Monday. On the other hand, the BRICS summit, world’s one of the most important economic summits will focus on increasing co-operation in economic field, which even includes the possibility of trade in local currency.

The SCO, founded in 2001, now has six member states – China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observers and Belarus, Turkey and Sri Lanka as dialogue partners.

A senior government official while speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed to The Express Tribune that the meeting between the two leaders has been scheduled for July 10. “With joint effort, China-India relations have seen sound and rapid development in recent years”, Hua said recalling Xi’s visit to India last year followed by Modi’s tour of China in May this year.

The Afghan national security advisor Hanif Atmar said earlier warned that the terror group wants to expand its operations not only in Afghanistan but the whole region and wants infiltrate in Central Asian countries. Noted Indian banker K V Kamath has been named as the first head of the bank. India and Pakistan are set to join SCO, which, according to Russian President Vladmir Putin, “is an open organisation and any state that has common aims, can join it”.

With the bank’s funding, developing countries, especially the African states, can improve their infrastructure, rather than struggling with the limited funds the current worldwide agencies provide them, it said.

In addition to the economic issues, the grouping of BRICS was expected to hold serious deliberations on the regional and worldwide political and security situation.

Also expected late evening is the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who will meet Putin on Thursday afternoon, right after the BRICS summit.

The leaders also tasked the finance ministers and central bank governors with ensuring that, by this summit, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) Working Group concludes the procedural rules and operational guidelines of the Governing Council and Standing Committee of the CRA, and to conclude an Inter-Central Bank Agreement.

“India and Pakistan are not joining the SCO tomorrow”.