China pledges enhanced support for SCO's better development

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on Monday that China will provide enhanced support for the better development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Xi made the pledge while addressing the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO in north China's port city of Tianjin.

"China has always focused on taking real actions to ensure better development of the SCO. Going forward, China plans to implement 100 'small and beautiful' livelihood projects in member states with such need. It will provide two billion yuan (about 281 million U.S. dollars) in grant to SCO member states within this year, and will issue an additional 10 billion yuan in loan to the member banks of the SCO Interbank Consortium over the next three years," said Xi.

"Starting from next year, China will double the current number of SCO-specific scholarships, and launch an SCO innovative PhD program to jointly train high-caliber talent in academic as well as scientific and technological research. In the next five years, China will establish 10 Luban Workshops in SCO member states and provide 10,000 human resources training opportunities," said Xi.

China's investment stock in other SCO member states has exceeded 84 billion U.S. dollars, and its annual bilateral trade with other SCO member states has surpassed 500 billion U.S. dollars, according to Xi.

Founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001, the SCO is the first regional international organization that was co-founded by China and is named after a Chinese city.

The SCO has grown from its six founding members into a 26-nation family spanning Asia, Europe and Africa, comprising 10 member states, two observer states and 14 dialogue partners. It is now the world's largest regional international organization in terms of both geographical area and population.

China assumed the SCO rotating presidency of 2024-2025 after the Astana Summit in Kazakhstan in July last year.

The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.6 percent in November, the highest level since October 2021, according to the data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday.

In November, the number of unemployed people in the United States stood at around 7.83 million, higher than 7.12 million in the same period of last year.

The data also showed that the U.S. non-farm sector added 64,000 jobs in the month, while month-on-month job losses were recorded in the transportation sector, the warehousing sector, and the federal government.