Immediately after the ESCAP Meeting for Trans-Asian Railway the Meeting of Subcommittee on Transport Infrastructure and Facilitation and Tourism started with inaugural speech of Mr. Him Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of ESCAP and followed by opening speech of Mr. Suriya Jungrungreangkit, Minister of Transport of Thailand. Both officials emphasized the importance of transport developments in all its modes in Asia as a pre-requisite for envisaging the globalization era (the texts of two statements are attached in Annex-I). The main purpose of the Meeting was to discuss major initiatives of ESCAP member states as well as ESCAP plans on transport infrastructure including progress towards ratification of the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Asian Highway and related infrastructure financing. The Meeting also discussed various aspects of tourism industry in Asia and the importance of tourism development in activating economic engine of the member states. The Meeting was part of the activities related to New Delhi Action Plan’s implementation which is supposed to be completed in year 2006 when the Ministerial Meeting of Transport will be held in Bangkok. The representatives of many Asian countries (from Transport and Tourism Sections) attended the Meeting and gave their country reports on the implementation of their national projects on transport and tourism (the list of participants and the programme and Annotated Provisional Agenda of the Meeting are attached in Annex-II).

 

            Based on the Provisional Agenda of the Meeting the main issues of discussions were divided into 7 parts and in each part one official of ESCAP gave a report and invited the participating delegations to intervene and give their comments. These 7 issues were:

 

1.   Major issues in transport, tourism and infrastructure development (transport infrastructure);

2.   Transport facilitation;

3.   Exchanging the Role of Tourism in Social and Economic Development and major initiatives of ESCAP;

4.   Implementation of phase II of the Regional Action Programme (2002-2006) of the New Delhi Action Plan on Infrastructure Development in Asia and the Pacific;

5.   Review of programme performance, 2002-2003;

6.   Programme changes for 2004-2005;

7.   Priority Areas for Inclusion in the Programme of Work, 2006-2007;

 

            For each above items one of the ESCAP officials gave a report on the activities of the Organization and the achievements in this regard and asked the delegations to report the latest developments for implementation of the relevant projects in their respective countries.

 

            The first issue focused on implementation of Work Programme in transport infrastructure within the overall framework of phase II of the Regional Action Plan (2002-2006) of the New Delhi Action Plan on Infrastructure Development in Asia and the Pacific and the Almaty Programme of Action. The ESCAP activities on the Asian Highway, the Trans-Asian Railway and intermodal transport was discussed in this report and it was reiterated that the Asian Highway Agreement will become operationalized after ratification of one more member state. (So far 7 member states have ratified the Agreement).

 

            The second issue (Transport Facilitation) discussed ongoing formulization of the Asian Highway and the Trans-Asian Railway and the construction and upgrading of road and rail networks and proper use of these transport routes to ensure the smooth movement of people and goods across territorial borders and to the gateway ports. The ESCAP activities on adoption of international norms in transport facilitation policies has been aimed at enabling the smooth movement of goods along transport corridors sponsoring several sub-regions with linkages to markets in Europe. In this regard the ESCAP Secretariat has tried to take advantage of the sub-regional transport approaches and arrangements including ECO and regular contacts are being made in this regard.

 

            The third issue related to the role of tourism in social and economic development and activities of ESCAP in this regard was profoundly discussed among the participants and ESCAP gave a comprehensive report on the development of tourism in the region and its socio-economic impact on the development policies of the Asian countries. The participating delegations from Indonesia, China, Thailand, Japan, Maldives gave comprehensive country reports on the tourism industry and its developments in their respective countries and reiterated that %80 of their incoming tourists are from Europe. Chinese delegation emphasized that despite the negative impact of SAARS disease his country is ranked number 5 in the world’s tourism revenue contest and emphasized that without enjoying a modern transport network development of a tourism industry is not meaningful. Maldives delegation noted that %30 of his country’s GDP is provided by tourism industry and in year 2003 more than 550000 foreign tourists visited Maldives.

 

            On the 4^th issue, implementation of phase II of the regional action programme (2002-2006) of the New Delhi Action Plan ……, the ESCAP representative gave a comprehensive report indicating the ESCAP Secretariat’s achievements through the implementation of phase II of the Regional Action Programme. He also invited the participants to review progress with respect to major transport developments and described the Secretariat’s work leading to Ministerial Conference in 2006.

 

            On Document No.5 the review of Programme Performance (2002-2003) the ESCAP Representative emphasized that in line with the revitalization of ESCAP and the UN system wide reforms introduced by the Secretary General in 1997, ESCAP is making a full shift to results-based management. He mentioned that result-based initiative allows the United Nations, including ESCAP, to determined more clearly and systematically the usefulness, relevance, effectiveness and impact of its work. This document provides the ESCAP performance in transport and tourism section based on this new approach recommended by United Nations Headquarters.

 

            On documents 6 and 7 other ESCAP officials gave their report programme changes for 2004-2005 and priority areas for inclusion in the Programme of Work (2006-2007), they discussed the changes necessitated by the recommendation of the Committee on Managing Globalization of its first session held in November 2003.

 

Conclusion:

 

            The meeting of this subcommittee and similar activities of ESCAP including the recent Meeting in Ukraine and up coming Meeting in Tehran (2^nd EGM on Developing Euro-Asian Transport Linkages 3-5 November 2004 in Odessa and Sub-regional Expert Group Meeting on Identifying Investment and Priorities for the Development of the Asian Highway Network and Related Intermodal Connections 25-27 January 2005 in Tehran) are parts of the ESCAP endeavour to prepare a comprehensive legal and practical framework for development of transport networks in the Asia-Pacific region to be endorsed by the Ministerial Meeting of Transport of Asia-Pacific in year 2006. In this preparatory activities ESCAP tries to take advantage of the regional and sub-regional projects and approaches in transport and tourism sections. Since this cooperation has a mutual benefit for both ESCAP and sub-regional organizations including ECO it is recommended that while keeping contact with ESCAP to monitor their activities, exchanges of experiences between the two organizations be taken into consideration.