On February 08, 2020, Mr. Asset Assavbayev, Secretary General of the PS IGC TRACECA met with Mr. Beibut Atamkulov, the Chairman of the TRACECA National Commission in the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructural Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Secretary General informed that the Permanent Secretariat is currently actively working on developing an approach to identifying problems and bottlenecks limiting the capacity of the TRACECA corridor.

Taking into consideration the sustained measures of the Republic of Kazakhstan to increase the transit potential in the region, participants of the meeting highlighted the need to enhance work on attracting containers to routes in the East-West direction.

It should be pointed out that the available forecast estimates of transit container traffic along the international transport corridor TRACECA show different figures, which is normal, and the final figure will depend only on the coherence of actions of all stakeholders.

During the exchange of views between Mr. Atamkulov and Mr. Assavbayev on the new TRACECA initiative to develop an agreement on transit transport with China, the importance of passing Chinese freight through the territory of the MLA member countries was noted, which, in turn, will serve as an effective impetus for the integration, modernization and optimization of TRACECA corridor.

Also, the discussion touched on the effectiveness of the "single window" concept, the Concept of an economic operator, the introduction of a whole transport document, as well as the position of Kazakhstan on the project of building a "straightening" highway of international significance from the centre of the Republic towards the port of Aktau.

Among the issues of importance for the development of all routes of the TRACECA corridor, the meeting participants discussed the implementation of the TITR project with regard to attracting freight within the framework of bilateral cooperation between the IA TITR and the PS IGC TRACECA. The route opens real opportunities for productive service of international freight transportation, on the basis of which a new and more profitable conditions for regional cooperation are formed.