ABSTRACT
The Council of Ministers, comprising ministers responsible for foreign affairs of member states, is the principal policy and decision-making body of economic cooperation organization (ECO). It meets at least once a year. In 1985 ECO replaced the Regional Cooperation for Development. Seven additional members were admitted to ECO in November 1992. In October 2018 ECO heads of privatization administrations issued the Baku Declaration, in which, inter alia, they agreed to establish an Investment Forum of the Privatization Organizations of the ECO Member States and International Investors, and to focus on the uses of public-private partnerships. : ECO works to combat the cultivation of and trade in illicit drugs in the region. An agreement on establishing an ECO Smuggling and Customs Offences Data Bank entered into force in December 2016. A Tehran-based ECO Cultural Institute was inaugurated in 2000. In December 2011 the ECO Science Foundation was established in Islamabad.
