On June 10, 2018, President Xi Jinping announced at the 18th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that “the Chinese government supports building a demonstration area in Qingdao for local economic and trade cooperation between China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).”

Thus, currently:

• the SCO comprises eight member states, namely the Republic of India, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Republic of Uzbekistan;

• the SCO counts four observer states, namely the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Republic of Belarus, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Mongolia;

• the SCO has six dialogue partners, namely the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Armenia, the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, the Republic of Turkey, and the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

Objective:

The SCODA is built to leverage its superior geographic location in the center of Qingdao’s integrated transportation network of sea, land, air, and railway, and coordinate the intermodal transportation of seaport, land port, airport, and railway. It empowers Qingdao to play its role in the construction of the “Belt and Road” New Eurasia Land Bridge Economic Corridor and maritime cooperation. It operates in a “green” way that focuses on logistics pilot, trade expansion, production capacity cooperation, cross-border development, and two-park interaction.

Efforts are made to build the SCODA into a pilot area for innovation of two-way investment and trade systems among the relevant localities across the SCO states, an agglomeration area for business entrepreneurship and development, and a pioneering area for local economic and trade cooperation along the “Belt and Road,” so as to build a new high ground for opening-up in the new era.

Location:

With a total area of 108 km2, the SCODA is situated on the north coast of Jiaozhou Bay in Qingdao, an open coastal city. Facing Japan, South Korea and the Asian Pacific Region in the east, connected to SCO countries in the west, ASEAN in the south, Mongolia and Russia in the North, the area enjoys an excellent location.