The 8th Meeting of the Ministers of Transport and Communications of the ECO Member States was held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on June 29, 2011. The Meeting was attended by delegations of all ECO Member states, therefore full quorum was achieved. A delegation from the ECO Secretariat, as well as delegations of IDB and IRU also attended the Meeting.
The Meeting was inaugurated with the welcome message of His Excellency Mr. Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the Honorable President of Turkmenistan. The inaugural statement of His Excellency Mr. Mohammed Yahya Maroofi, ECO Secretary General highlighted the progress achieved in regional cooperation in the field of transport and communication since the 7th Ministerial Meeting (Antalya, 2008).
The Ministers discussed important regional issues and reviewed the progress made in the ECO programmes and projects in the field of transport and communications in the region. The Meeting made concrete decisions on implementing important projects in this field. Those include the new Programme of Action for ECO Decade of Transport and Communications, Monitored Regular Run of Trucks, Common Visa Sticker for Drivers, activation of the TIR Convention in Afghanistan and Pakistan, enhancement of the TTFA, establishment of online money order system between the member states, establishment of the ECO Logistic Provider Associations Federation, and developing road transport corridor on Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul as well as on Iran-Afghanistan-Tajikistan-Kyrgyz Routes.
In railway sector, the Meeting took measures to increase the working capacity of the ECO Container Train on Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul Container Route, operationalization of the ECO Container Train on Istanbul-Almaty and Bandar Abbas-Almaty routes, and expeditious construction of railway on the following routes: Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran; Baku-Kars; Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran)-Astara (Azerbaijan); Kyrgyz Republic-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Iran.
The 9th Ministerial Meeting will be held in the Kyrgyz Republic in 2012.
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