"9 out of 13 TRACECA countries are the UIC members, which highlights the importance of working together under the Memorandum of Understanding once again"

TRACECA and UIC representatives discussed areas of cooperation and noted perspective directions in their activity. In particular, the discussions touched upon the development of container transport across the territories of the region’s countries, improving border crossing procedures, and developing common approaches to the definition of competitive tariffs.

In this regard, the importance of “Eurasian Corridors: Development Potential” publication, prepared by the UIC Freight Department, was pointed out. The publication includes the results of a study on the previous measures taken by the countries of Europe and Asia to attract cargo traffic, the forecasted volume of cargo transportation by container trains up to 2030, as well as on the factors impacting the increase in container transport.

The Agenda of the meeting emphasized the special relevance of TRACECA's research activity together with UIC in the field of rail transport in order to develop country-specific recommendations on the harmonization of transport policies and the creation of favourable conditions for carriers, including work on factors affecting container transport, such as infrastructure, digitalization and new technologies.

 "In this direction, the UIC experience, the analysis of the tariff market, and the joint activities will be very useful for the Permanent Secretariat of the IGC TRACECA," – Mr. A. A. Assavbayev said.

The participants of the meeting agreed to develop a joint action plan, as well as actively work on developing common approaches (methods) of calculating tariffs to create the most favourable conditions.

It should be noted that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the PS IGC TRACECA and UIC was signed on July 17, 2003 in Baku, Azerbaijan, taking into account UIC competence as a major organization of international cooperation that contributes to its strengthening, as well as the role of the Intergovernmental Commission responsible for the implementation of the Basic Multilateral Agreement on International Transport for Development of the Europe – the Caucasus – Asia Corridor.