Geographic Focus: National TRACECA Commissions Ministries of Transport & Cabinet of Ministers

Project Budget : EURO 2,500,000

Contractor : to be contracted in 2001

Implementation timetable : 24 months

REPORTS ON LINE FOR THIS PROJECT (If needed, instructions for download here)

Background and Objectives. During May 1993 a conference was held in Brussels organized by the Commission and attended by authorities of eight Republics of the south of the former USSR:

• Armenia,
• Kyrgyzstan
• Azerbaijan
• Tadjikistan
• Georgia
• Turkmenistan
• Kazakhstan
• Uzbekistan

The objectives of the conference were:

• to stimulate co-operation among the participating States in all matters pertaining to the development and improvement of trade within the Region.
• to promote the Central Asian - Trans Caucasian-Europe Transport Corridor.
• to identify problems and deficiencies in the Region's trade and transport systems.
• to define, in terms of contents and timing a Technical Assistance Program to be financed by the European Union (EU).

Regional sectors Working Groups (trade, rail, road, maritime), composed of experts and officials from each TRACECA state and the European Union (EU), have been established as part of the TRACECA program. They meet periodically. They have inaugurated specific projects including this present one, and will monitor results. Members are drawn from appropriate sectors, usually Ministers of Transport and Cabinet of Ministers, who form the recipient partners of this project. Ukraine and Mongolia have joint the TRACECA program end 1996, Moldova mid-1998.

On September 7-8, 1998, delegations of 32 countries and 13 international organizations attend in Baku for the International TRACECA Conference. Nine Presidents and one Prime Minister, Ministers, Ambassadors and heads of delegations discussed the importance of the TRACECA program as the shortest way of integration into the international economic structure, as a guarantee of political and economic stability and also as a means to improve regional co-operation.

During this Conference, 12 countries signed a Multi-Lateral Agreement (MLA) on International Transport in the transport corridor Europe-Caucasus-Central Asia and four supplementary technical documents on customs, road, maritime and rail transport. Under the Multilateral agreement Permanent Secretariat in Baku was set up.

On 10-11 March 2000 in Tbilisi the First Conference of TRACECA Intergovernmental Commission (IGJC) was held. The Conference adopted the Intergovernmental Commission rules and procedures for the future as well as the statues of the Permanent Secretariat and elected its General Secretary.

In each member state, a National TRACECA Commission was set up and a National Secretary of Permanent Secretariat appointed. TRACECA program 2000 will follow the Action Plan agreed during the Tbilisi Conference and we expect launching of new TRACECA projects during the first half of 2001.

Key Issues.

• Set up three working groups, road, rail and maritime, attached to the IGC. The groups are to meet at regular intervals, and members are to be deeply involved in all project activities. The project is to be managed from a regional center. The Team Leadership is to include a citizen of a TRACECA country.
• Inventory all fees, national, or regional, or any other type of fee or permit needed by road transport
• Examine the legal basis for these fees, the transparency of the publication procedures
• Analyse in depth the economic benefits and losses of transit traffic for each country
• Compare and recommend a fair standard for road transit fees
• Carry out detailed analysis with the beneficiary state railways of:
• real costs of rail service provision
• comparative costs of transit tariffs within and adjacent to the TRACECA corridor
• possible new tariff scales, methodologies for adjusting them, and the likely effect on volumes
• Carry out a detailed analysis with port authorities and shipping companies of the tariffs that they charge. As for rail transport, compare these with real costs of production, and propose rationalised scales.
• Discuss within the region the advantages and disadvantages of revising fee and tariff scales and mechanisms, bringing this debate back into the IGC for action, when a clear consensus on regional

Latest updated version February 2000