Iran’s Acting President Mohammad Mokhber has offered that introduction of single the currency of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) based on groundbreaking technologies should be seriously discussed, Mehr News Agency (MNA) reported on July 5.

“Beefing up the economic cooperation between member states may become one of the major steps aimed at strengthening the SCO’s role globally and in the region.  This includes expansion of the use of national currencies or [the creation] of common currency based on groundbreaking technologies, which is of the utmost interest and a serious cause for discussion,” he said at a meeting in ‘SCO Plus’ format, according to MNA.

“Tehran views the SCO as a major instrument for increasing the factor of multilateralization in the region and it is committed to expansion of agreements for "strengthening the strategic regional cooperation with the SCO’s central role," Mokhber was cited as saying.

An intergovernmental agreement on the creation of the multimodal transport corridor North-South spanning 7,200 kilometers was signed by Russia, India and Iran in 2000.  Later, the number of participants rose to 14.  The project is reportedly aimed at attracting transit of cargo flows from India, Iran and the Persian Gulf countries through Russian territory to Europe. Currently the project unites several various transport systems of separate countries.

Established by Russia and China in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a Eurasian political, economic, international security and defense organization.  It is the world's largest regional organization in terms of geographic scope and population, covering approximately 80% of the area of Eurasia and 40% of the world population.  Its combined GDP based on PPP was around 32% of the world's total.

Initially the organization included Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, while in 2017 they were joined by India and Pakistan.  Iran became a full-fledged member of the SCO on July 4, 2023, and Belarus became a full-fledged member of the Organization on July 4, 2024.  

Thus, the SCO now has ten full members – Belarus, China, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, India, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Mongolia is an observer state.

SCO’s dialogue partners include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkiye and United Arab Emirates.

ACEAN, CIS, Turkmenistan and the United Nations are guest attendances.

Inactive: Afghanistan.