9th Road Committee, 6th Customs Transit Committee and 9th Meeting of the TTCC

The meetings of 9^th Transit Transport Coordination Council (TTCC), 9^th Road Committee of TTCC and 6^th meeting of the Customs Transit Committee of TTCC were held in Islamabad on 13-15^th February 2018. Delegations representing transport and customs authorities/administrations of eight Member States, Contracting Parties to Transit Transport Framework Agreement (TTFA), namely, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkey participated in the Meetings. The representatives of the International Road Transport Union (IRU) and the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchange of Turkey (TOBB) and the ECO Secretariat attended the Meetings.

H.E. Mr. Furqan Bahadur Khan, Federal Secretary of the Ministry of Communications, Islamic Republic of Pakistan inaugurated the Meeting. In his statement he briefed on the measures being taken by the Government of Pakistan to enhance the regional connectivity, improve efficiency of transport and trade logistics sector.

9^th Road Committee of TTCC discussed at length outstanding technical issues impeding smooth flow of traffic. Facilitation of multiple visas for drivers, issuance of permits without limitation, technical requirements for roads and vehicles, accession to major international legal tools facilitating movement of goods were among top issues which have been addressed by the Meeting. Updates/clarifications have been provided further to the presentation made by ECO Secretariat on the data collected during the field visits of the consultancy team to the road segments and border crossing point of Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul (ITI) and Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Iran (KTAI) enroute countries. In order to create cost-effective road transportation and reduce costs of business, the Meeting was proposed to include this issue in the agenda of the upcoming meeting of ECO Ministers of Transport.

As regards 6^th Customs Transit Committee of TTCC, the Meeting was updated on measures and plans being taken by the Member States regarding electronic TIR (e-TIR), TIR Electronic Pre-Declarations (TIR-EPD), TIR+, GPS tracking of cargo etc. The representative of IRU made a comprehensive presentation updating the Meeting on, inter alia, the latest status of TIR implementation in ECO region (2005-2017). The Meeting called on all Member States to provide regular updates in line with implementation of the 5-year Action Plan prepared under ECO/IDB Project on customs provisions of TTFA and modernization of border crossing points.

The 9^th Meeting of the TTCC was briefed by representative of the ECO Secretariat about the performance of the TTFA Fund in 2017. The Meeting discussed proposed Programme of the TTFA Fund for 2018/2019 to cover TTFA related activities/events and approved the proposed Programme. Under “Any other business” the Meeting was given some updates regarding MoU between Pakistan Railways and Turkish logistic company (BALO) to operationalize ITI container train services.