Signing Ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Permanent Secretariat (PS) of the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) TRACECA and the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Institute in Baku, the Republic of Azerbaijan

On 10 September 2018, in the Headquarters of the Permanent Secretariat (PS) of the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) TRACECA in Baku, the Republic of Azerbaijan, under the patronage of the Secretary General of the PS IGC TRACECA the Signing Ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding will take place.

After long period of negotiations and practical steps made by the Permanent Secretariat of the IGC TRACECA and Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Institute it is agreed to build up cooperation between two institutional structures on the basis of conclusion of Memorandum of Understanding. 

The Signing Ceremony is expected to be attended by the Ambassadors of the MLA TRACECA member states and CAREC in the Republic of Azerbaijan and their plenipotentiary representatives, Ambassadors of the countries involved in the transport dialogue within TRACECA region, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, representative of Asian Development Bank (ADB), Secretary General of the Permanent Secretariat IGC TRACECA, the Permanent Representative (National Secretary) of the PS IGC TRACECA in the Republic of Azerbaijan, PS experts.

It should be mentioned that CAREC Institute is an intergovernmental organization that has been established by CAREC member countries as a knowledge institution for implementing the CAREC Program. The CAREC Program has been established in 1997 by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to encourage economic cooperation among countries in the Central Asian region and called for implementation of transport infrastructure issues and investment opportunities of ADB.

At the moment the Program comprises - partnership of 11 countries (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, People's Republic of China (the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and development partners working together to promote enlargement through cooperation, leading to accelerated economic growth and poverty reduction. 

The CAREC Institute is located in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China.

6 out of the 13 member countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) of TRACECA are also CAREC members.

Currently TRACECA unites transport system of 13 member-countries of the Basic Multilateral Agreement on International Transport for Development of the Europe-the Caucasus-Asia corridor (MLA): Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Ukraine.

At the same time, Greece and Lithuania have observer status in the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) TRACECA.