At the Alasan Pass Station in Xinjiang on the border between China and Kazakhstan, China-Europe freight trains loaded with cargo slowly drove out and rushed into the distance.

Amid the whistle of the "Iron Camel Fleet", in the fields covered with green cotton seedlings, on the cloud and shelves of "Silk Road E-commerce", the sustainable development cooperation of the "SCO Family" continues to shine new vitality and work together to build a common home for prosperity and development.

2025 is the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization Year of Sustainable Development". Under the international situation where geopolitical conflicts occur frequently and trade barriers are intensifying, the SCO countries continue to promote high-quality docking of regional national development strategies, expand the breadth and depth of cooperation in the fields of connectivity, agriculture, industry, green industries, digital economy, etc., and help regional sustainable development go deeper and more practical.

Improve the interconnected network

The SCO is not only the largest and most populous regional international organization in the world today, but also an important platform for jointly building the "Belt and Road". Under the framework of the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" initiative, SCO countries actively deepen cooperation in the field of infrastructure to promote regional connectivity and trade facilitation.

From the China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline to the China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline, from the China-Taman Highway to the China-Jiji-Ukraine Highway and Railway, from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to the International Transport Corridor of the Caspian Sea... The SCO National Connectivity Cooperation has been further strengthened, and economic and trade cooperation has achieved fruitful results.

Hassan Daoud Butt, senior associate professor at the University of Bakhriya in Pakistan, said that the SCO's practical cooperation in connectivity has achieved remarkable results. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and other departments will help open up new markets, create sustainable employment, enhance supply chain resilience, and accelerate regional development transformation.

Data released by the General Administration of Customs of China shows that in the first seven months of 2025, China's total import and export of goods from other member countries of the SCO through land transportation reached 677.4 billion yuan, an increase of 7.4%; the total import and export of goods through air transportation reached 251.01 billion yuan, an increase of 44.6%.

Igor Shestakov, director of the Oioldo Expert Initiative Center in Kyrgyzstan, believes that the SCO's development and joint construction of the "Belt and Road" cooperation will help each other, and the regional three-dimensional interconnection network will be continuously improved, which is of great significance to the region's sustainable development.

Promote economic transformation and upgrading

Through the cooperation platform and mechanism built by the SCO, China actively shares its experience in agricultural science and technology, processing and manufacturing, and industrial coordinated development, promotes the optimization and upgrading of industrial chains and supply chains of various countries, and enhances the autonomy and sustainability of their economic development.

Uzbekistan is one of the world's major cotton producers, but the traditional local flooding method has led to waste of water resources and low cotton yield per mu. In 2020, Abdullah Bekmatov, a cotton grower in Sir River Prefecture, the country, began to try Chinese submembrane drip irrigation technology. He found that "drip irrigation technology can make cotton 'drink' precise and solid. Seeing the real high yield and increase in income, Bekmatov spread the sub-membrane drip irrigation system into another 900 acres of cotton fields this year.

Kazakhstan is one of the world's major food exporters. Xi'an Aiju Group has built an agricultural product logistics processing park in North Kazakhstan in 2016, and guided local farmers to carry out diversified and quantitative planting through order acquisition. "The order model solves the problem of what farmers plant and who they sell to," said Grigori Galkushkin, a farmer in North Ha State.

After Belarus officially became a member of the SCO last year, the attractiveness of the China-Belarus "Big Stone" Industrial Park, a landmark project for cooperation between China and Belarus, has been further enhanced. At present, more than 150 companies from 15 countries have settled in the park, forming industrial clusters such as machinery manufacturing, electronics, logistics, medical care and biotechnology.

In April this year, the SCO Sustainable Development Investment Promotion Event was held in Tianjin, and the "Jushi" Industrial Park and a Chinese traditional medicine company signed a cooperation agreement during the event. Kirill Karojeev, the first deputy general manager of China-Belarus Industrial Park Development Co., Ltd., said that he believes that the development of the park will enhance bilateral relations and help enterprises explore the international market.

Expand new space for cooperation and development

Against the backdrop of the accelerated new round of scientific and technological revolution, SCO countries are seeking more diversified cooperation, strengthening interaction in areas such as green technology and digital infrastructure construction, promoting the development of the digital economy and scientific and technological innovation, and providing strong support for sustainable development.

The 100 MW photovoltaic power plant in Kapchagai in Almaty Prefecture is a China-Kazakhstan green energy cooperation project and one of the largest single photovoltaic power generation projects in Kazakhstan. Sherik Korrumbayev, editor-in-chief of Kazakhstan Industrial News, said that China has achieved outstanding results in developing new quality productivity, and projects such as photovoltaic power plants provide practical support for Central Asian countries to transform into a low-carbon economy.

In order to explore the "rich mine" of the digital economy, the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Zone has built a "Silk Road E-commerce" comprehensive service base with high standards, and carried out overseas warehouse export tax rebates and innovation in export business in special cross-border e-commerce areas. With the help of the China-SCO Big Data Cooperation Center platform, all parties have cultivated a number of innovative projects in the fields of logistics and transportation, cross-border e-commerce and large-scale models.

In Kyrgyzstan, the 5G networks that Chinese companies participate in the construction cover major cities, and the Internet penetration rate has increased from 43% to more than 70%. In Tajikistan, China-Tajikistan cooperation digital medical platforms have achieved full coverage of remote consultations, benefiting people in local remote areas. In Türkiye, cooperation projects with China in the fields of digital industry and other fields continue to be promoted.

"China's development in cutting-edge science and technology fields such as artificial intelligence, 5G, and robotics is remarkable, showing the strong potential of the digital economy to promote sustainable development." Mohamed Bozkurt, senior researcher at the Turkish Asia-Pacific Research Center, said that the SCO strengthens multilateral coordination and digital cooperation and is committed to improving the independent development capabilities of regional countries, which will surely inject new impetus into achieving sustainable development and inclusive growth.