Ashraf AboArafe
THE Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is entering a new phase after a quarter-century of development—one in which its traditional emphasis on security and stability is increasingly complemented by a broader architecture of economic and development cooperation encompassing trade, investment, energy, transport, technology, security, climate, food security, and tourism.
At the center of this transformation stands Uzbekistan, emerging as one of the most active contributors to shaping the Organization’s agenda. Drawing on its strategic position in the heart of Central Asia, Tashkent is seeking to transform the SCO space into an interconnected network of trade corridors, production chains, infrastructure projects, and technological partnerships.
The SCO: From Building Trust to Building an Economy
Established in 2001 by six countries, the SCO has gradually expanded to include ten member states, alongside a growing number of partners and other participating countries. With this expansion, the Organization’s geographical, demographic, and economic weight has increased significantly, making it one of Eurasia’s most important platforms for multilateral cooperation.
Its importance has grown further amid the restructuring of global supply chains and the increasing need to diversify trade and investment routes while strengthening regional economic connectivity.
The SCO countries now account for more than 65% of Eurasia’s territory and around 3.4 billion people, while their combined nominal GDP exceeds $26 trillion.
Their collective economic growth was around 5% in 2025, compared with approximately 3.4% for the global economy, underscoring the growing weight of the SCO space in the international economy.
Yet the Organization’s real strength lies not only in these figures, but in the diversity of its resources, markets, production capabilities, and competitive advantages. It brings together major industrial economies, energy and resource-rich states, large consumer markets, advanced technological centers, and strategically important transport corridors.
This diversity creates significant opportunities for specialization, industrial integration, and cross-border value chains.
Uzbekistan: Trade as a Gateway to Economic Transformation
For Uzbekistan, the SCO represents a practical platform for expanding trade and investment relations rather than merely a political framework for multilateral dialogue.
Between 2017 and 2025, Uzbekistan’s trade turnover with SCO member states increased from $12.9 billion to $40.6 billion, more than tripling.
In 2025, SCO countries accounted for approximately half of Uzbekistan’s total foreign trade, demonstrating the depth of the country’s economic interconnectedness with the Organization’s markets.
China, Russia, and Kazakhstan remain Uzbekistan’s leading partners, with trade reaching approximately $17.2 billion with China, $13 billion with Russia, and $5 billion with Kazakhstan.
These figures demonstrate that the SCO economic space has become a fundamental component of Uzbekistan’s external trade structure.
But Tashkent’s ambition extends beyond expanding trade volumes. It seeks to move from the exchange of goods toward long-term production and technological partnerships.
From Trade to Joint Industrialization
Uzbekistan’s strategy increasingly emphasizes joint ventures, technology localization, deeper manufacturing, and the production of higher-value-added goods.
In 2025, foreign investment and loans in fixed capital in Uzbekistan amounted to approximately $33.5 billion. Manufacturing accounted for 33.2%, electricity and gas supply for 17.1%, and mining for 11.9%.
Investment from SCO member states reached approximately $17.5 billion, with China accounting for around $13 billion and Russia for approximately $2.6 billion.
This helps explain Uzbekistan’s initiatives concerning an SCO Regional Center for Critical Materials, an SCO Energy Consortium, venture capital mechanisms, and a unified electronic platform for direct business and investment contacts.
The objective is to turn the SCO into a space for production, investment, and innovation—not simply a market for trade.
Corridors: When Geography Becomes Power
Few issues demonstrate Uzbekistan’s strategic interests more clearly than transport connectivity.
As a landlocked country, Uzbekistan depends on secure and diversified routes to external markets. This makes connectivity a fundamental condition for sustainable economic growth.
The China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway, construction of which began in December 2024, is therefore of exceptional strategic importance.
The project is expected to shorten the route from East Asia toward the Middle East and Southern Europe by approximately 900 kilometers and reduce delivery times by 7–8 days, with potential freight volumes estimated at 12–15 million tonnes annually.
Another major project, the Uzbekistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan railway, could connect Central Asia with South Asia and the ports of the Indian Ocean.
If the two projects are successfully linked, a continuous route could emerge connecting China, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Indian Ocean.
At that point, transport would cease to be merely a logistical service. It would become an instrument for reshaping Eurasia’s economic geography.
Every railway line can carry with it new investment, industrial zones, markets, development opportunities, and greater economic influence.
Uzbekistan as a Potential Eurasian Connectivity Hub
Tashkent also supports the concept of a Single SCO Transport Space, based on multimodal networks, transport digitalization, and seamless green corridors, alongside efforts to reduce administrative and customs barriers.
This vision becomes increasingly significant as connectivity expands among East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, the Caspian region, Iran, and Russia.
Uzbekistan is therefore seeking to transform its landlocked geography from a constraint into a strategic advantage, positioning itself as a transit and logistics hub linking major economic centers across Eurasia.
Security: From Traditional Threats to Comprehensive Security
Security remains at the core of SCO cooperation, but the meaning of security itself is evolving.
After years of focusing on terrorism, separatism, extremism, organized crime, and drug trafficking, the agenda increasingly encompasses cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, artificial intelligence, and environmental and technological risks.
Uzbekistan has an important role in this process, particularly because the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure is based in Tashkent.
Tashkent also supports the modernization of the Organization’s security mechanisms and the development of specialized structures dealing with organized crime and drug trafficking, reflecting a move toward a more comprehensive and specialized security architecture.
In the digital sphere, Uzbekistan has promoted initiatives on information security, combating cybercrime and online extremism, and the establishment of an international expert council on artificial intelligence addressing ethics, cybersecurity, and deepfake-related threats.
Afghanistan: Security Through Development
Uzbekistan attaches particular importance to Afghanistan, viewing the country as part of the broader Central Asian geographic and economic space rather than solely as a source of security threats.
The Uzbek approach rests on a clear equation:
Sustainable security requires development, and regional development requires stability in Afghanistan.
This explains Tashkent’s call to resume the work of the SCO–Afghanistan Contact Group, providing a mechanism for coordinating efforts related to economic development, infrastructure, and Afghanistan’s integration into major regional projects.
This approach becomes even more significant in light of proposed railway corridors that could make Afghanistan part of a wider transport network linking Central and South Asia.
Climate and Food Security: The New Face of Security
Regional cooperation is also expanding into climate resilience, food security, and water-related challenges.
Central Asia is facing growing pressure from rising temperatures, land degradation, melting glaciers, and water scarcity.
According to the estimates cited in the Uzbek analysis, average temperatures in the region have increased by approximately 1.5°C over the past three decades, roughly twice the global rate.
Uzbekistan is therefore promoting smart agriculture, water- and resource-saving technologies, agro-logistics centers, and green corridors facilitating the cross-border movement of agricultural products.
It has also proposed an SCO Food Security Atlas to monitor agricultural potential and strengthen the resilience of food supply chains.
The broader lesson is clear: food, water, and climate security are increasingly becoming integral components of national and regional security.
Technology and Green Energy
Uzbekistan’s agenda extends beyond transport and trade to the emerging economy of the future.
Tashkent advocates the establishment of an SCO Network of Innovation and Technology Hubs, focusing on artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, bioengineering, and alternative energy.
The energy sector presents equally significant opportunities. SCO countries possess vast conventional energy resources while simultaneously expanding renewable energy capacity.
According to the figures cited in the analysis, the total installed renewable energy capacity of SCO countries reached approximately 2.31 billion kW by the end of 2024.
This provides a strong basis for initiatives such as the SCO Energy Consortium, alongside cooperation on climate adaptation, decarbonization, and the use of artificial intelligence to predict environmental risks.
The Human Dimension
No regional project can achieve lasting success through governments and institutions alone.
For this reason, Uzbekistan also advocates expanded cooperation in education, culture, science, and tourism, strengthening direct contacts among the peoples of SCO member states.
Proposals include expanding the SCO University network through an online campus, organizing competitions and Olympiads for students and young professionals in innovative fields, and establishing a Great Silk Road cultural dialogue.
Tashkent has also promoted joint tourism corridors and cultural routes, alongside the proposed SCO Medical Tourism Alliance.
These initiatives give the Organization a human dimension that extends beyond political and economic calculations, reviving the concept of the Silk Road as a space of cultural exchange as well as commerce.
From the Shanghai Spirit to the Future of Eurasia
After 25 years, the SCO faces a different test from the one it confronted at its creation.
The Organization has succeeded in creating a broad space for dialogue and coordination and has expanded its membership and economic and geographical reach. The next stage, however, will be judged by its ability to translate agreements into projects, institutions, and permanent implementation mechanisms.
The adoption of the SCO Development Strategy through 2035, together with the decision to establish the SCO Development Bank, reflects an effort to move from strategic vision toward the financial and institutional tools needed to implement it.
The major challenges remain the development of project-financing mechanisms, digitalization of trade and customs, wider use of national currencies in settlements, integration of transport networks, harmonization of standards, and improvement of the business environment.
Uzbekistan: From Membership to Agenda-Shaping
At this stage, Uzbekistan appears to be more than simply a founding member of the SCO.
Through its initiatives in trade, investment, transport, energy, critical materials, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, climate, food security, and tourism, Tashkent is seeking to influence the direction the Organization will take in the coming decades.
Its strategy rests on a fundamental premise:
Regional power in the 21st century is built not only through military capabilities, but also through the ability to connect markets, corridors, technology, energy, and people.
This gives the Shanghai Spirit a broader contemporary meaning. It can become not only a principle of coexistence, mutual trust, and good-neighborliness, but also a practical framework for connectivity and shared development.
If the SCO succeeds in implementing its major initiatives, its space could become one of the most important centers of the emerging global economy. Uzbekistan, in turn, could demonstrate that its position at the heart of Asia is not merely a geographic fact, but a strategic asset that enables it to serve as one of the key bridges linking Eastern, Central, and Southern Eurasia.
Ultimately, the future of the SCO will not be determined by the number of summits or declarations, but by its ability to transform the Shanghai Spirit into railways, dry ports, investment, factories, energy networks, technology, markets, and tangible development opportunities.
Only then will the Organization’s 25th anniversary mark not simply what has been agreed, but what has been achieved—and Uzbekistan will stand among the countries helping to move the SCO from an era of confidence-building toward an era of building Eurasia’s future.
