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CAREC countries offer to simplify transport and trade procedures

Business Materials 11 July 2012 11:06 (UTC +04:00)
Senior customs, transport, and finance officials from the 10 member countries of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program reviewed cross-border transport arrangements for CAREC corridors last week at a seminar in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, ADB said today.
CAREC countries offer to simplify transport and trade procedures

Azerbaijan, Baku, July 11 / Trend A. Akhundov /

Senior customs, transport, and finance officials from the 10 member countries of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program reviewed cross-border transport arrangements for CAREC corridors last week at a seminar in Beijing, People's Republic of China, ADB said today.

The roundtable seminar reviewed existing cross-border transport arrangements, studied international good practices, and came up with practical recommendations on how to improve transport and trade procedures and processes to ease movement of people and goods.

CAREC promotes project-based cooperation in transport, energy, trade facilitation, and trade policy. The CAREC partnership comprises 10 countries - Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, the People's Republic of China, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan - and six multilateral institutions: ADB, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Monetary Fund, Islamic Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, and World Bank. ADB has served as the CAREC Secretariat since 2001.

Since 2001, CAREC-related investments have totaled $17 billion in energy, trade and transportation. These include building the trademark CAREC transport corridors and energy networks throughout these mainly landlocked nations. Improved infrastructure contributed to a nearly 13-fold increase in intraregional trade between 2001 and 2008, and looking forward, the corridors could triple trade flows by 2017 from the 2007 total.

Since joining CAREC in 2002, Azerbaijan has invested almost $3 billion in CAREC-related projects. Azerbaijan's East-West Highway improvements under CAREC have helped make this vital transport artery a faster and more efficient corridor between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, promoting more trade between Europe and Asia.

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