The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, which took place in Kyrgyzstan, did not bring the consensus desired by Vladimir Putin – the President of the Russian Federation and Aleksander Lukashenko – the President of Belarus, to transform the SCO Development Bank into a functional institution. Although the political decision to establish the bank had been taken at the previous summit held in Tianjin (China) on September 1, 2025, at yesterday’s event the leaders of the ten member states of the organization did not agree on the mechanisms necessary to operationalize this international financial institution, but they established that negotiations on essential elements would continue.
Vladimir Putin explicitly supported the operationalization of the SCO Development Bank and said that it should be as independent as possible from the financial systems of states that use economic instruments for political pressure. He added a very important number: in Russia’s transactions with the SCO states, over 98% of settlements are already made in national currencies. Moreover, according to the Kremlin leader, Russia’s trade with the SCO states exceeded 400 billion dollars in 2025.
Alexander Lukashenko, in turn, called for the acceleration of the establishment of the SCO Development Bank and an increase in the share of national currencies in transactions between members, explicitly linking the bank to the „financial sovereignty” of the SCO space.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the President of Kazakhstan, offered his country to host the headquarters of the future SCO Development Bank, if the members reach a consensus. He proposed that the bank should primarily finance infrastructure, technology and industrial projects.
The blockage in the operationalization of the SCO Development Bank does not mean that the project will be abandoned, but quite the opposite. In May 2026, the finance ministers and central bank governors of the SCO states noted progress in consultations on the bank and…
