China has been strengthening its influence on the markets of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), say experts of the Russian-Chinese Business Council.

"Being a member of the SCO, China views other members of the organization as promising markets. It is China that wishes to be the engine behind the trade and economic cooperation within the framework of the SCO," reads a report of the council entitled ’Economic Partnership Policy 2007’ obtained by Interfax.

"China’s intentions to form so-called economic space within the SCO are well known. Owning to that fact, experts have been speaking about greater Chinese economic expansion in various parts of the world, including the Central Asia," the report reads.

"Beijing has activated bilateral ties with all Central Asian countries and strives to comprehensively strengthen economic relations and the dependency of these countries on its market," the report reads.

"Bilateral trade with regional countries [mainly Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan] has increased. Direct international cargo and passenger roads to China have been laid in order to achieve that goal," the report reads.

Energy cooperation with Central Asian countries is particularly important for China, the report reads. "The construction of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to the China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which is worth roughly $10 billion, is promising to China, while the Atasu-Alashankou pipeline, which connects fields of Kazakhstan’s Karaganda region with the Alashankou terminal in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, was completed in 2005," according to the report.

SCO members are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.