Tashkent/ On June 23, a tripartite meeting of leaders of Mongolia, China and Russia was held for the third time in Tashkent city, Uzbekistan on sidelines of the 16th Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
The first ever meeting of the state heads of the three countries took place at initiative of President of Mongolia Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj in September 2014 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan and the second meeting was hosted in July 2015 in Ufa city, Russia.
This time, the leaders of the three states made a point on actions the sides plan to carry out in near future.
President of China noted that following their meeting in Ufa, a roadmap was adopted for developing trilateral cooperation for mid-term prospective, which is being actively implemented by related ministries, local authorities and companies of the three countries. The sides are effectively coordinating projects in the fields of trade, economy, humanitarian links, transit transport, tourism and sports. Positive results are vivid. The current meeting will be resulted in signing an essential cooperation document which is a program on building economic corridor, highlighted Mr Xi Jinping.
In his turn, President of Russia V.Putin noted “Traditional friendly relations link Russia with China and Mongolia. A program has been designed on building the economic corridor between Russia, China and Mongolia as a step towards delivering Ufa agreements. It aims at significant stimulation of border relations through launching over 30 tripartite investment projects. ”
Russian side found perspective a Mongolian idea to establish a joint investment projecting center which will serve to work out new proposals on cooperation in the areas of transport, building communications and electricity lines, and energy supply routes.
Thereby, President Putin made an emphasis on infrastructural initiatives. In particular, Russian business is ready to engage in modernization of the Ulaanbaatar railways in order to increase its carrying capacity up to 100 million tons of freight per year.
V. Putin stressed that further facilitation of customs procedures will be conducive to enhancing trade relations between the three countries, including border ties. An agreement on mutual recognition of results of customs checks which was signed same day in presence of the three leaders serves this purpose.
The Russian President also touched upon a range of issues concerning energy supply to Mongolia, cooperation in the tourism sector, promoting academic exchange and highlighted that trilateral partnership has a good potential in many fields to be used for prosperity of our nations.
President of Mongolia Ts.Elbegdorj touched upon implementation of the program on building economic corridor. Thereby, he proposed choosing ready for implementation projects out of 32 projects and seeking their financial sources. Taking into consideration that the parties were agree to create a mechanism of investment center, he suggested making it happen within 2016.
Secondly, in frames of stimulation of cooperation in the fields of roads and transport, Mongolia proposed holding consultations of transport ministries of the three countries on regular basis, which are real mechanism for forwarding railway projects. It is planned to hold the third meeting in August-September in Ulaanbaatar with a view to discuss the pressing issues.
Thirdly, trilateral cooperation priorities shall be identified. Our cooperation cannot be restricted only with economic corridor, transport and customs matters. Regional cooperation is one of the priorities. We are principally backing Chinese ideas on developing cooperation of eastern regions of Mongolia, Russia and China. Mongolian side is ready to further designating a corresponding cooperation roadmap.
Mongolia considers possible to develop trilateral cooperation in the areas of agriculture, prevention and combating of disasters and their aftermaths.
The President of Mongolia wished to hold a trilateral summit in Ulaanbaatar in order to stimulate our cooperation and expressed a confidence that the trilateral mutually beneficial collaboration will make a great contribution to the development of not only our countries, but also the region as a whole.
President Xi Jinping said the sides have to forward trilateral cooperation on the basis of interlocking Chinese initiative Economic belt Silk Road, Russian strategies on building transeurasian corridor and Mongolian initiative Steppe Road.
Emphasizing responsible implementation of the program on building economic corridor, President Xi Jinping forwarded proposals related to possibilities of creating trilateral zone, making focus on constructing infrastructure, border trade, industrialization, tourism, humanitarian ties, combining efforts in the industrial sphere and promoting subregional cooperation in the interests of developing border regions of the three countries.