Developing transport connections, increasing the effectiveness of international railway cargo transportation and attracting foreign trade cargo to the railways in increased East-West cargo transportation flows linking Asia, Europe and North-East America are among the main objectives of the strategy signed by the International Union of Railways (UIC) and the Coordinating Council on Trans-Siberian Transportation (CCTT).
The two organisations have recently signed a Memorandum of Cooperation. The agreement signed in Paris takes into consideration the opportunities arising from the globalisation of economic activities, resulting in increased East-West cargo transportation linking Asia, Europe and North-East America as well as the experience gained through the work on ensuring the competitiveness of railway transportation and the broadly shared interests in increasing West-East-West cargo flows.
One of the main missions of the International Union of Railways (UIC) is to place rail transport as a key link in the global logistics chain through the efficient functioning of international rail corridors, and also implementation of the international railway law at the level of railways, particularly by means of developing various documents and instruments, and standardisation of contractual conditions for international rail traffic.
The Coordinating Council on Trans-Siberian Transportation (CCTT) is the association which includes more than 100 rail and maritime companies. It coordinates the activities between the participants of international multimodal transportation. CCTT’s aim is to help attract cargo to the West-East International Transport Corridor by using the Trans-Siberian mainline, particularly through the implementation of innovative technologies of international container shipping and electronic data processing.
“Interoperability has always been at the very heart of UIC’s mission. Today more than ever interoperability is the key to creating the fundamental development of corridors linking Europe and Asia. This means technical, administrative, legal and commercial issues to be solved. Therefore, this common and shared vision between UIC and CCTT working together on these issues will certainly be a foundation for developing railways at global and intercontinental level”, said UIC Director-General Jean-Pierre Loubinoux.
The cooperation between the two organisations includes increasing the competitiveness of international railway freight traffic in the field of transport policy, safety issues, scientific technical and economic information on the basis of modern information technologies, statistics – container shipping by rail in foreign traffic using the Trans-Siberian mainline – international transport on corridors – including performing common analysis of the work, drafting proposals and recommendations on improving cargo transportation via the international transport corridors, freight transportation as part of solid container and container trains in Eurasian traffic collaboratively, alleviating border crossings, and introducing competitive transit rates.
Cooperating in the field of innovation was also established with the aim of setting common information including implementation of electronic data, preparation and execution of joint innovation projects for the needs of railway transport and transport logistics companies.
The third point of the Memorandum refers to cooperation in international education considering the mutual interest in developing scientifically-educational programs in the field of international relations, international logistics and international transport (railway) law, which is essential for employees in a modern transport system.
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