Indian Council of World Affairs

On October 26, 2023, the 22^nd meeting of the Heads of Government Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was held in Bishkek. Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan Akylbek Japarov presided over the meeting. Dr. S. Jaishankar, India’s Minister of External Affairs, led the Indian delegation to the meeting. Iran participated first time in the meeting since joining the SCO in July 2023 and it was represented by First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber. A communique was issued following the meeting – though the document stresses cooperation across a number of sectors, digital sector is emerging as an increasingly important area of engagement. 

The Heads of State Council (SCO Summit) is the highest decision-making body and the Heads of Government Council (HoG) is the second most important mechanism of the SCO. Setting the SCO's economic agenda and approving the organization's budget are essentially the HoG Council’s responsibilities. The Bishkek HoG meeting is the first high-level SCO leaders meeting following the virtual SCO Summit, which India hosted on July 4, 2023, as Chair of the Organization in 2022–2023. 

In the Bishkek HoG meeting, India’s SCO Chairmanship received applaud and early implementation of July Summit decisions, was called for. India’s G20 Presidency theme ‘One Earth. One Family. One Future’ was also emphasized in the Bishkek communique.[1]

SCO Cooperation in digital area 

Every SCO nation aims to offer ‘proactive’ and ‘predictable’ public services to its people.[2] Technology and digitalization are excellent equalizers that create level playing fields for all - small and large economies in the organization. Virtually connecting SCO with ease is another potential benefit of digital connectivity. Regional trade can benefit from the growth of the digital economy, the digitalization of the economy, e-commerce, and e-connectivity. Thus, the SCO aims to improve participation in the framework of digital cooperation. 

For some time, SCO has been contemplating digital collaboration, tangible steps are now being made. On July 4, 2023, the New Delhi SCO Summit 2023 endorsed an exclusive document titled ‘Statement of the Council of SCO Heads of State on Cooperation in Digital Transformation.’[3] Terming digital technology a ‘force multiplier,’ the text urges members to work together to ‘unlock the full potential of digitalization across all sectors of the economy, including the digitalization of the real economy.’ 

The digital cooperation agenda has been advanced in the SCO HoG Bishkek 2023 meet where the importance of expanding ‘practical cooperation’ in SCO, including in science and technology, innovation, information and communication technologies and digital economy was highlighted. It adopted a separate document titled ‘an Initiative to Study Prospects in the Sphere of Digital Trade’. The initiative will look for ways to collaborate in economic and trade activities in the area of digital trade.[4]

In the Bishkek Communique, the digital economy has been acknowledged as playing a ‘key role’ in industrial modernization, development, enabling inclusive economic growth, and stimulating national economies.[5] The leaders emphasized knowledge and experience sharing about the use of digital technology and called for increased cooperation in e-commerce. They also talked on online dispute resolution and the protection of consumers’ rights in e-commerce. Additionally, SCO intends to redouble the efforts of the SCO Working Group on e-Commerce. A decision has been made about a virtual gathering of vendors and customers from the SCO area.[6]

In order to utilize the enormous human potential of a young population in Eurasia, the reach of developments in digital areas should expand and it should be reasonably affordable. 

India enjoys a distinct position in the world for IT and IT-enabled services. During his speech on July 4, 2023, as the Chair of the SCO Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India has created five new pillars of cooperation within the SCO, one of which is ‘digital inclusion’. The other four pillars are traditional medicine, youth empowerment, startups and innovation, and shared Buddhist heritage.[7] PM Modi also noted that collaboration has taken on a ‘new and modern’ dimension with the addition of the sphere of digital public infrastructure. 

In his address on October 26, 2023, in Bishkek, Dr. Jaishankar called for a template for increased economic collaboration.[8] He said that commerce between India and the SCO countries has grown robustly and has the potential to further increase significantly. Taking note of the ongoing expansion of cross border e-commerce, he stated that developing trustworthy consumer protection measures and working together to guarantee fair competition between big and small sellers are essential. 

As a catalyst, New Delhi can play a major role in assisting countries, particularly those in Central Asia, to undertake their digital transformation at a reasonable cost through digital cooperation. The lives of the common people in India are being drastically altered by India’s creative development strategies, such as enabling financial inclusion through the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity, which uses mobile phone and citizenship data to facilitate financial exchanges at the grassroots level on a vast scale. By facilitating more person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) payments, platforms such as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) have significantly contributed to growth and revolutionizing the digital payment ecosystem.[9] A record-breaking 10 billion UPI transactions occurred in August 2023.[10] The expansion of digital payments has aided expansion of economy and commercial sector, and financial inclusion.[11] Additionally, it has helped to make government system more transparent, especially through the direct benefit transfer programme. 

Believing in its ancient philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) and encouraging collaboration in the spirit of ‘neighbourhood first’, India is willing to provide Central Asian nations its UPI technology free of cost.[12] Additionally, it has promised to help put up sovereign digital real-time payment systems that meet these nations’ requirements. 

Chinese and Russian are the two official languages of the SCO. India has been seeking to make English the third official language. The AI-based multilingual platform ‘Bhashini’ has been created by Indian specialists. To overcome the linguistic barrier in SCO, India has offered to share this platform with all of the SCO nations.[13]

Conclusion 

In light of the prevailing geopolitical and geoeconomic circumstances within the SCO’s operational domain, it appears that the SCO countries are endeavouring to accord priority to agenda items that have increased convergence. Recent SCO meetings, including the HoG in Bishkek reflect that. Consequently, digital cooperation could become a vibrant area of engagement among SCO states. Digital connectivity has increased exponentially on all fronts, and new opportunities are opening up. 

As the emphasis on digitalization is growing, cooperation throughout the area is even more necessary to ensure the security and reliability of digital infrastructure and services. India’s expertise may be essential in shaping the digitally connected and cooperative virtual world that the SCO countries are creating in Eurasia.

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*Dr. Athar Zafar is a Senior Research Fellow at Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi.
Disclaimer: The views are of the author.

Endnotes

[1] SCO, “Joint communique following the 22nd meeting of the Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation,” file:///C:/Users/itsau/Downloads/963592.pdf, 26 October 2023, accessed 1 November 2023

[2] SCO, “Statement of the Council of SCO Heads of State on Cooperation in Digital Transformation,” 4 July 2023, file:///C:/Users/itsau/Downloads/949570.pdf, accessed 28 October 2023

[3] ibid

[4] The Diplomatic Insight, “Historic Agreements and Initiatives Emerge from Bishkek Meeting of SCO,” 26 October 2023, https://thediplomaticinsight.com/historic-agreements-and-initiatives-emerge-from-bishkek-meeting-of-sco/, accessed 30 October 2023

[5] SCO, “Joint communique following the 22nd meeting of the Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation,” file:///C:/Users/itsau/Downloads/963592.pdf, 26 October 2023, accessed 1 November 2023

[6] Tatyana Kudryavtseva, “SCO summit: Prime Ministers sign number of documents,” 26 October 2023, https://24.kg/english/278411_SCO_summit_Prime_Ministers_sign_number_of_documents/, accessed 4 November 2023

[7] Ministry of External Affairs, “English Translation of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s Remarks at the 23rd SCO Summit,” 4 July 2023, https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/36750/English_Translation_of_Prime_Minister_Shri_Narendra_Modis_Remarks_at_the_23rd_SCO_Summit, accessed 30 October 2023

[8] ANI, “EAM Dr S Jaishankar says, "Addressed the 22nd session of the Council of Heads of Government of SCO at Bishkek today. Highlighted that:,” 26 October 2023, https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1717445115655143933, accessed 1 November 2023

[9] Ministry of Electronics & IT, “Digital Transactions in India,” 8 FEB 2023, https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1897272, accessed 2 November 2023

[10] Prime Minister’s Office, “PM lauds crossing of 10 billion UPI transactions in August 23,” PIB, 1 SEP 2023, https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1954009, accessed 2 November 2023

[11] Ministry of Electronics & IT, “Digital Transactions in India,” 8 FEB 2023, https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1897272, accessed 2 November 2023

[12] Mint, “NSA Ajit Doval offers help to Central Asian states to fight terror, takes a dig at Pakistan,” 17 October 2023, https://www.livemint.com/news/india/nas-ajit-doval-offers-help-to-central-asian-states-to-fight-terror-takes-a-dig-at-pakistan-11697561620818.html, accessed 3 November 2023

[13] Ministry of External Affairs, “English Translation of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s Remarks at the 23rd SCO Summit,” 4 July 2023, https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/36750/English_Translation_of_Prime_Minister_Shri_Narendra_Modis_Remarks_at_the_23rd_SCO_Summit, accessed 30 October 2023