On 12 March 2019, upon official visit of Mr. Ciopraga, TRACECA Secretary General, Mr. Dominique Gentils the Deputy Head of Mission of the French Embassy in the Republic of Azerbaijan, paid a courtesy visit to the TRACECA Headquarters

Secretary General briefly introduced TRACECA to Mr. Gentils and Ms. Bak during the meeting. 

The Agenda of the meeting included such issues as a draft Action Plan 2018-2021 for the implementation of the Strategy of the Intergovernmental Commission TRACECA, new role created by the opportunities along the TRACECA corridor that connects regions of Europe and Asia, covering the Caucasus, beneficial initiatives and ideas, including Memorandums of Understanding, TRACECA Multilateral Permits, TRACECA Manual for border crossing and other outstanding issues. 

It was stressed, that at present TRACECA has 13 member countries. Lithuania and Greece are observers of TRACECA, who are invited in the meeting /conferences of providing assistance on various aspects of TRACECA activities. 

Mr. Mircea Ciopraga also informed the representatives of the Embassy that the European Commission has been reliable partner of TRACECA for many years. Up to date within the TRACECA Programme the European Commission has financed 85 projects. The funding of TRACECA projects had been done by the European Commission for the purpose of improvement of traffic between Europe and Asia along the ITC TRACECA region. 

At the moment, the PS IGC TRACECA has signed 10 Memorandum of Understandings. Among the latest, TRACECA has signed MoU with CAREC Institute for developing infrastructure, and solving transport related problems of the member countries as well as with Silk Road Chamber of International Commerce to collaborate with the China’s One Belt One Road Initiative (BRI).

Mr. Gentils and Mr. Ciopraga exchanged opinions on the trade and transport opportunities in the Europe-the Caucasus-Asia region, particularly of TRACECA member-states as well as the issues of cargo transportation along the corridor.The discussion also touched various routes and corridors that has been created recently and actively promoted in the region such as Lapis – Lazuli, North – South, Black Sea-Caspian Sea and its competitiveness and relativeness to the TRACECA corridor. 

Mr. Ciopraga stressed that Intergovernmental Commission TRACECA since its establishment has gained a lot of experience in the transport field and always ready to provide assistance in knowledge exchange to the new created structures/routes within its region and share its invaluable input. 

In addition, Mr. Ciopraga also mentioned the negotiation process of the signing Memorandum of Cooperation between PS IGC TRACECA and Trans Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) are still ongoing.

At the end of the meeting Mr. Ciopraga and Mr. Gentlis expressed hopes for the further fruitful meetings.