The 2nd High Level Working Group (HLWG) Meeting on Istanbul,“Almaty and Bandar Abbas,“Almaty Railway Corridors was held virtually on November 7, 2022. The meeting was attended by the representatives of the railway authorities from the en-route countries (the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Tأ¼rkiye), as well as the Secretary General of the Intergovernmental Organization for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) and high level representative of the UNECE.
Mr. Akbar Khodaei, Director of Transport and Communication of ECO, underlined that the connectivity policy of the ECO has always prioritized corridor approach over isolated initiatives and in developing the infrastructure, inter-regional and international connectivity has been guiding principle. Highlighting the importance of the Corridors, as the most direct transport route between East-Asian with Europe through Central Asia, the Director also shared his views regarding the solutions and the way forward for a well-developed and reliable policy making and mechanism to manage them to enable full utilization of their potentials.
In the course of the meeting, the participants exchanged their views on the recent developments regarding the railway sector and deliberated on the issue of tariffs, travel time, corridor management mechanism and commercialization of the Corridors.
The representatives of the UNECE and OTIF expressed their support towards full utilization of the capacities of the Corridor by the international stake holders through the recently established coordination mechanism between ECO and UNECE.
