On November 22, 2004 the Regional Meeting for Drafting the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Trans-Asian Railway organized by UNESCAP inaugurated by Mr. Kim Hak Su, Executive Secretary of ESCAP in the headquarters of the said UN body in Bangkok. The representatives of ESCAP member states UNECE and ECO representatives attended the Meeting (the list of the participants as well as the programme of the two days meeting is attached in Annex-I). After the opening speech of the Executive Secretary the Director of Transport and Tourism of ESCAP, Mr. Barry Cable, presented his speech by giving a report on the activities of UNESCAP in transport and explained that holding the said Meeting and its results was a step forward in implementing New Delhi Action Programme (2002-2006) which along with the results of other activities such as implementing the Intergovernmental Agreement on Asian Highways will be discussed and overviewed in the Asian Transport Ministerial Meeting which is planned to be convened in year 2006 in ESCAP Headquarters. He also explained various transport routes in Asia and described various regional framework agreements to operationalize these Asian transit routes aiming at facilitation of the movement of people and goods and boosting trade and economic relations among the Asian countries as well as their ties with Europe continent. He also talked about demonstration runs of container block trains and the necessity for signing an Intergovernmental Agreement on the Trans-Asian Railway Network as the first important step for operationalization of the said route. He also emphasized on the importance of other regional as well as sub-regional organizations such as UNECE and ECO to cooperate and contribute for implementing the railway projects connecting Asia and Europe.

 

            Following to the presentation of ESCAP official the Director of Transport Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Mr. Jose Capel Ferrer, gave his speech on the experiences of Europe in transportation sector and various agreements signed by the European countries in road, railway, multimodal and inland waterways for facilitating the movement of goods and people in Europe and progresses made in this regard (the text of the ESCAP Executive Secretary’s speech as well as the summary of the speech of the said two Transport Directors of UN are attached in Annex-II).

 

            Then the representative of ECO gave a presentation on the experiences of ECO in implementing China-Middle East-Europe railway Corridor including the demonstration run of both passenger and block container trains and various meetings held to solve the problems for smooth running of the said trains. He emphasized that many technical and procedural problems including the tariff issue had been dealt with and a high level Expert Working Group and its especial sub-groups will soon be established to work on the remaining issues and proposes solutions so that the said railway route become activated on a regular basis. The success of the ECO in so far implementation of the movement of block container train was interesting for the participants and they raised questions in this regard which were answered by the ECO representative (unwritten contents of the presentation is attached at Annex-III).

 

            A preliminary Draft Agreement was then introduced by Pierre Chartier, a Transport Economist of ESCAP, in which he explained the contents of the Draft and emphasized on the importance of support and cooperation of the international regional and sub-regional organizations such as ASEAN, ECO, OSJD, SAARC and……… to the activities of ESCAP in order to implement its Trans-Asian Railway project. In this Draft legal procedures and conditions for joining the agreement have been described while in Annexes 1 and 2 to the Draft the Asian railway lines of all ESCAP members and technical characteristics of those lines have been identified. The Meeting then asked the participants to present their country reports on implementation of their transport infrastructure and facilitation which were done upon alphabetical order. Then the participants were asked to study the Draft agreement and its Annexes and raise their comments and proposals.

 

            On the content of the main Draft there was no comments/view points, however, on the annexes especially Annex 1 or the main identified railway lines there were many comments, corrections and proposals raised by the delegations (the summary of the speech, the Draft Agreement and its two Annexes and the report of the Meeting including revised list of participants and Meeting’s programme are attached in Annex-IV.

 

Conclusion:

 

            The Meeting was financed by the Republic of Korea and one representative of each member state was hosted by ESCAP. The participants actively contributed to the Meeting’s discussions and taking the view points and interests of the participants into consideration the Trans-Asian Railway is among the attractive transport activities of UNESCAP and since ECO has a profound experience on the similar project within its own region the cooperation of the two organizations will be of great advantage for both.

 

            Furthermore, with regard to operationalization of the passenger train between Almaty and Istanbul (and its extension to Europe and China) the Olympic games of 2008 in Peking/China could be regarded as a good occasion for attracting many European Olympic fan wishing to attend the games and, therefore, should be used for encouraging the less interested ECO member states to pay more attention to the economic interests and achievements of activating this railway route.