An aerial drone photo taken on Aug. 26, 2025 shows a cargo ship at Qingdao Port in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. In recent years, Qingdao Port in east China's coastal province of Shandong has leveraged its location and cluster effect of the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) to facilitate multilateral trade cooperation among the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries. So far, Qingdao Port is connected with 42 shipping routes to SCO countries, reaching 30 ports in these countries. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's trade with other Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states stood at around 512.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, up 2.7 percent year on year, a commerce official said Wednesday.

Last year, China imported nearly 90 billion U.S. dollars worth of crude oil, natural gas and coal from other SCO members, along with 13.66 billion dollars worth of agricultural products, Ling Ji, vice minister of commerce, said at a press conference.

Energy imports from other SCO members accounted for about one-fifth of China's total imports in 2024, according to Ling.

"The investment and industrial cooperation between China and other SCO member states has made steady progress in recent years," Zhang Li, another official with the Ministry of Commerce, said.

In recent years, Chinese enterprises have set up more than 3,000 companies in other member states, creating over 200,000 jobs on average each year, Zhang added.

The SCO Summit 2025 will be held from Aug. 31 to Sept. 1 in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin. The event will bring together leaders from more than 20 countries and heads of 10 international organizations to outline the blueprint for the bloc's development over the next decade.

Primarily born to address security concerns, the SCO has, over its 24-year development, grown into a comprehensive regional organization representing nearly half of the world's population.