- 30 April 2020 -
Distinguished Ministers,
I would like to welcome you all in our video-conference meeting.
As you know, our leaders held an Extraordinary video-conference Summit on 10 April and discussed the coordination of the national efforts among our countries in the fight against the pandemic COVID-19, during which they decided to develop cooperation among our countries in the transport sector in every possible way.
In their discussions, they placed a special emphasis on transport cooperation to ensure food security and unhindered movement of essential goods (such as; humanitarian goods, basic consumer goods, medicines and medical equipment etc.) among our countries.
In order to mitigate the negative effects of the global pandemic on the economies of our countries, they made specific references of simplifying facilitation of transport operations through the Trans-Caspian Corridor.
In this difficult time, our leaders clearly wanted us to;
- provide practical assistance to one another to facilitate the passage of freight vehicles through borders/checkpoints for the delivery of humanitarian goods, basic consumer goods, medicines and medical equipment, and exchanging information on emerging problems in this field;
- create a Task Force among the Ministries of Transport of the Parties to quickly resolve emerging issues and effectively coordinate transport and logistics during the pandemic;
- assist one another with the quotas, transit-pass fees, driver visas;
- make discount on the prices of the Ro-Ro lines across the Caspian Sea, provide necessary additional (bilateral/transit) permits; and regulate the fees of the transit passes on the basis of reciprocity;
- adopt a harmonious tariff policy and remove administrative barriers to reduce the time of cargo transportation;
- develop non-contact foreign trade and multimodal transport systems among the Parties across the Trans-Caspian Corridor.
It was a nice development that since the day of the video summit, the freight train has transported 82 containers of Turkish products to Turkic-speaking countries. Similar rail and road transportation should continue during this difficult time.
Dear Ministers,
1. As you mentioned in your speeches, the most urgent task for the transport sector nowadays is to maintain supply chains, especially for essential goods such as food and medical items.
Of course, there are national policies, developed plans and unconditional priorities at the country level. At the same time, it is very important for the Member States of the Turkic Council to effectively coordinate these national measures. Our government agencies need to clearly know the current regime in each country and regularly report any changes in enforcement procedures.
In this regard, the need arose to create a “Task Force” as proposed by the Heads of State.
Here I would like to note that within the framework of the Turkic Council, there already exists a “transport coordination committee” at the level of deputy transport ministers, created to practically solve the problems that arise during transport operations.
In this regard, I propose to use and activate this mechanism as a “Task Force”. The Secretariat expects you to delegate your representatives at the level of deputy ministers to this Transport Coordinating Committee.
2. The next proposal made in the speeches of our presidents concerned the simplification of the supply of essential goods across borders, assisting one another with the travel fees, driver visas, quotas, additional permits, Ro-Ro prices at the Caspian crossings, mitigating administrative barriers, as well as green corridors and multimodal transportation options, including the route proposed by the Uzbek side; Tashkent-Karakalpakia-Aktau-Baku-Tbilisi-Kars-Istanbul.
All these fundamental aspects of transport cooperation can be addressed in the framework of the newly formed Transport Coordinating Committee.
3. I think, the composition of the Coordination Committee needs to include Customs authorities as well since some of the issues such as establishing a green corridor, preparation of the list of essential goods, remote advance notification systems, or multimodal transportation are directly related with the Customs authorities. In this regard, if you agree, I will bring the “Coordination Committee” issue into the attention of the Ministers of Trade and Heads of Customs Authorities on 6 May in our video-conference.
Dear Meeting Participants!
4. As you know, in order to overcome the limitations caused by the pandemic, Uzbek side proposed to take additional measures to increase the efficiency of the “green corridors” for the transit of food, medical products and other essential goods within the framework of the Turkic Council.
Faster operations, rather than regular shipments, definitely, will be a great achievement. The “Green Corridor” will have additional benefits for transport cooperation among the countries of the Turkic Council and in the post-pandemic period too.
Hence, I kindly propose you to task the newly created Transport Coordination Committee under the coordination of the Turkic Council to work for the realization of the Green Corridor project.
5. Regarding the proposal of developing multimodal transport among our countries through the Trans-Caspian, I wish to remind that this issue has been already raised to the Agenda of the previous meetings of transport ministers. We have the draft “Agreement on the International Combined Freight Transport Among the Member States of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States”. Our Heads of State instructed us at the last Summit in Baku to conclude the Agreement.
The Secretariat proposes to consider this issue within the framework of the “Transport Coordination Committee” at the level of deputy ministers as a matter of priority to complete the preparation of the signing of the Agreement before the next regular meeting of the Heads of State. That would be an important achievement for all of us. The Secretariat proposes a meeting of the Transport Coordinating Committee in mid-May.
Afterall, the Pandemic has shown us the importance of benefitting all transport modes efficiently. Nowadays, the railway transport is substituting the road transport due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic. We also know that multimodality is one of the main requirements of the Trans-Caspian Corridor for geographical reasons.
6. We all know that the pandemic crisis will leave behind a grim picture on the economies of the countries across the world, including ours. It is extremely important to prepare and identify specific steps that need to be taken in the transport sector to speed up the economic recovery of our countries and minimize the negative consequences of the pandemic.
We believe that every crisis is showing us the significance of the Trans-Caspian Corridor.
However, as was noted by our leaders, we have many issues that need to be addressed by joint efforts. First of all, the pricing problems and administrative difficulties in the above-mentioned corridor. For example, the cost of Ro-Ro shipments across the Caspian Sea, toll fees, quotas, additional permits, visa issues, irregular Ro-Ro operations, etc.
We have to address these difficulties not only to overcome the current crisis, but also, it’s especially important to transform the Trans-Caspian Corridor as an efficient and sustainable trade line among our countries. This would turn our countries to real transit powers in global trade between East and West, and will also make a huge contribution to the economic and social development of our countries.
We will continue to discuss and resolve these issues at our upcoming regular meetings.
In conclusion, I would like to once again thank all of you for participating in our very productive meeting, during which we were able to agree on many important issues, for which we couldn’t find solutions for many years. Indeed, every crisis contains the seeds of opportunity.
We will continue our cooperation in the fight against pandemic in the upcoming period through the Deputy Minister-level “Transport Coordination Committee” under coordination of the Turkic Council.
I hope we will soon overcome the threat of coronavirus and be able to convene the 5th meeting of the Ministers of Transport of the Turkic Council on 18 September 2020 in Budapest as planned.
