NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will  participate in the 18th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in China on June 9.

Prime Minister Modi will also hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 9, the first day of the summit: External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar told journalists here on Thursday.

On the sideline of the SCO summit, Mr. Modi will also have other engagements with leaders of Central Asian countries.

The SCO, largely dominated by China and having Central Asian nations as its members, is holding its apex meeting in the Chinese city of Qingdao from June 9-10.

In the preparation for the SCO summit, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman had recently visited China to participate in the ministerial meetings.

An inter-governmental organization, the SCO was founded in 2001. Among its members are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China. India and Pakistan were admitted as full members of the organisation in June 2017 during its Astana summit.