SCO busier than ever with more projects, growing responsibilities: SCO Secretary General

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is busier than ever as new members and cooperative projects continue to surge, SCO Secretary-General Nurlan Yermekbayev said in Beijing.

In an exclusive interview with China Media Group (CMG) in Beijing on Tuesday, the SCO Secretary General talked about the organization's growing responsibilities and the practical impact of its work among member states.

"The SCO has indeed seen remarkable results from its many activities, and so far, these results have mainly manifested in bilateral relations among member states. For example, trade volume among members has continued to rise, surpassing 700 billion U.S. dollars since the start of 2026. Freight and passenger transport between member states is up, mutual investments are steadily increasing, and local currency settlement is also on the rise. Most of this cooperation remains bilateral at present. Nevertheless, our multilateral activities have made significant contributions. Firstly, the SCO provides an excellent platform for bilateral engagement. Secondly, our multilateral forums and meetings help establish business contacts and agreements that later take shape at the bilateral level," said Yermekbayev.

"Currently, our goal is to promote projects that involve three, four, or even more member states together. Not all 10 members need to participate -- it could be five or six countries. At present, such collaboration has been achieved in some projects, mostly in the social sphere, but we aim to push for large-scale economic and transport initiatives. We are not doing this without a reason. We clearly sense that the leaders of our member states are sending strong signals about this. They want the Secretariat to play a more active role in all these processes to take more initiative in making proposals for the members to consider," said the secretary-general.

Under the theme "25 Years of the SCO: Together Towards Sustainable Peace, Development, and Prosperity", the SCO Summit 2026 will take place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from August 31 to September 1, bringing together leaders from more than 20 countries in the Kyrgyz capital.

SCO busier than ever with more projects, growing responsibilities: SCO Secretary General

The threat of the barrier lake formed after Wednesday's catastrophic mudslide at the Gyirong Port, a major China-Nepal land border crossing in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, continues to subside, with the lake's size steadily shrinking, according to an on-site monitoring team.

In the wake of the disaster, which has claimed at least seven lives and left more than 550 others missing in Gyirong, China Anneng -- a state-owned engineering and rescue enterprise -- has deployed teams to the disaster zone to support the search and rescue operations.

One of the teams tasked with monitoring the barrier lake, which sits over 10 kilometers upstream from the port, said real-time surveillance footage showed the lake was continuing to drain out.

"Our task today is to find a stable monitoring point on the opposite bank and install our detection equipment there to monitor the displacement of the landslide body and guard against the risks of a secondary collapse," said Chen Hanxiao, a member of the monitoring team from the Lhasa base of China Anneng.

The 15-member monitoring team have brought with it drones, satellite stations, and communication gear.

"A comparison of today's imagery with yesterday's shows that the water level here has dropped by about one-third. The receding water poses no further threat to the dam's structural integrity, buying valuable time for the rescue crews to carry out critical hazard mitigation work," said Hu Bo, head of the monitoring team.

However, Hu cautioned that despite the encouraging signs, the situation remains unpredictable given the region's complex glacial environment and changeable weather conditions. He stressed that real-time surveillance and data analysis are vital to assessing the barrier lake's stability and supporting follow-up operations.

The mudslide was triggered by a high-altitude glacier collapse on the Nepalese side, where the disaster had killed more than 620 people and left over 2,400 others missing, as of Saturday morning, according to the country's national disaster risk reduction and management authority.

Threat of barrier lake waning after massive mudslide near China-Nepal border