On May 26th, the 2nd meeting of the High-Level Working Group on the "Tajikistan – Uzbekistan – Turkmenistan – Iran – Turkey" (TUTIT) + China multimodal corridor took place in Dushanbe.

According to Newscentralasia, the meeting was organized by the Ministry of Transport of Tajikistan with the support of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) through their "Trade Facilitation in Central Asia" Project.

Representatives from ECO member states, including Tajikistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, participated in the meeting. Observers included representatives from the Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China, the Regional Centre for Transport Diplomacy, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), UNECE, and the International Road Transport Union (IRU).

The meeting focused on the development and promotion of this international transit corridor to increase freight traffic and simplify trade procedures, especially for landlocked countries.

The agenda for the meeting included topics such as:

·         A roadmap for the digitalization of freight transportation

·         Tariff structures and optimal routes

·         Infrastructure development priorities

·         Planning a test run to identify bottlenecks in corridor operations and logistics issues

The Minister of Transport of Tajikistan expressed his conviction that the development of intermodal and multimodal transport corridors, cross-border, and transit transport services forms the basis for sustainable economic growth and expanded logistics chain opportunities.

The first meeting of the Working Group was also held in Dushanbe on September 21, 2023.

It's worth noting that the High-Level Working Group Meeting on the TUTIT multimodal corridor was established in accordance with the recommendations of the Ankara Declaration, adopted at the 11th meeting of ECO Ministers of Transport on February 2, 2022, and based on the decisions of the 33rd meeting of the ECO Regional Planning Council.