BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 19. A meeting was held between the Secretary General of the Permanent Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Commission (IPC IGC) TRACECA Asset Asavbayev and the Secretary General of the Intergovernmental Organization for International Freight Transportation (OTIF) Wolfgang Küpper, the press service of the PS IGC told Trend.
According to the press service, Asavbayev and Küpper discussed the issues of international rail transport procedures, legal and technical requirements in the organization of transport, approximation of the laws of countries, accession to international conventions on railway transportation, as well as various aspects of the application of a unified CIM (Convention on International Railway Transport)/SMGS (Agreement on International Rail Freight Traffic) consignment note.
These issues are also widely discussed and are within the competence of transport departments, customs, and railway organizations of the TRACECA and OTIF member countries, the press service said.
At the meeting, Asavbayev noted that the application of the unified CIM/SMGS consignment note, digitalization, and its further implementation on the railways are priority issues identified in the strategy and action plan of the TRACECA member countries.
"There are plans to hold a second joint seminar on the use of the e-consignment, to which representatives of OTIF are invited. In this regard, it’s very useful to share best practices with this organization," he said.
In this direction, TRACECA is actively cooperating with the Organization for Cooperation between Railways, the International Union of Railways and the CIT Rail international company.
During the meeting, the parties stressed the importance of transporting goods from China along the Europe-Caucasus-Asia route, as well as increasing the flow of goods on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.
The OTIF Secretary General stressed that the organization's cooperation with China is developing within the framework of the signed memorandum of understanding and expressed readiness to share this experience with TRACECA.