BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 30. Chairman of Azerbaijani Railways Rovshan Rustamov and Chief Infrastructure Banker of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Elena Gordeeva have discussed the possibilities for expanding cooperation in the modernization of railway infrastructure this week, Trend reports.
Gordeeva underscored the bank's readiness to finance infrastructure projects of Azerbaijani Railways in the future.
Besides, the General Assembly of the International Association of Transportation Regulators (IATR) of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) and the regular meeting of the Working Group on the development of this route took place in the Kazakh port city of Aktau.
The need to effectively use the potential of the Middle Corridor, attract more cargo to this route and organize container transportation along this corridor in a more efficient way was emphasized during the discussions at the event.
Furthermore, a working group to finalize documents regulating the status and activities of the TRACECA Fund started its work in the format of a web conference.
During the conference, a number of countries made proposals to finalize the text of the rules regarding governance mechanisms, financing procedures, audit issues, and the termination of the fund.
In addition, the working group considered the proposals defining the terms of consideration of applications for project financing, the expediency of determining the maximum thresholds of financing, the conditions of project implementation, as well as co-financing mechanisms with partial allocation of TRACECA Fund resources.
This week, the Third Conference in the China-CEEC (Central and Eastern Europe countries) format discussed aspects of the development of logistics cooperation, harmonization and simplification, as well as effective management of corridors to reduce the time of cargo transportation and border crossings.
Meanwhile, agreement was reached at the online meeting of the Uzbek-Azerbaijani joint commission on international road transport about the exchange of additional forms of bilateral permits. Moreover, three types of permits (transit, bilateral, and trilateral) will be introduced between the countries starting in 2024.
Baku Port, which was awarded the "EcoPorts" certificate for the first time in the region in 2019, has once again successfully passed the certification stage. The Port Environmental Review System (PERS) of the European Sea Ports Organization (ESPO) has awarded Baku Port the "EcoPorts" certificate for the third time in a row.
Moreover, representatives of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) and travel agencies of the country discussed the development potential of tourism and aviation in a meeting. Special attention has been paid to the importance of effective interaction for strengthening Azerbaijan's position in this area on a global scale.
The meeting addressed wide-scale issues, including expanding the route network, improving the quality of passenger service, creating attractive tourism offers and many other relevant matters.