BEIJING – GTI Transport Board members gathered for the 8th Transport Board Meeting on 20 September 2018. The Meeting co-organized by the GTI Secretariat and Ministry of Transport of China was held back to back with the GTI Transport Expert Group meeting.
Transport Expert group meeting which preceded the session of the Transport Board gave the opportunity to exchange experts’ views on the project proposals, which were later submitted to the transport board for endorsement, as well as to share the latest developments with regards to Present Situation and Prospect of Cross-border Logistics Corridor in Northeast Asia and plans to conduct a trial shipment from China to Japan through the territory of Russian Federation. Moreover the issue of logistics information sharing and the possibility of establishment of such an initiative under GTI was brought up during the Experts meeting. In this regard, a representative of LOGINK introduced the NEAL-NET platform among China, Japan and Republic of Korea, and their best practices which allowed to substantially progress with logistics information exchange among the three countries.
During the Transport Board meeting, the GTI Secretariat has reported to the Transport Board on the recent developments within the transport sector including the latest activities of NEA EXIM Banks Association and Logistics Sub-Committee (LSC). Later, the Members of the Board presented the national progress made along the GTI Regional Transport Strategy.
Furthermore, the GTI Secretariat presented a revised version of the GTI Midterm Transport Action plan suggesting to include new objectives and activities based on the discussions by the Expert Group and analysis of the agenda of the recent Transport Board meetings. It was also decided to extend the Action Plan for the period of one more year (until 2019) in order to prepare an updated version of the Plan, based on the relevant study of NEA Integrated logistics network which was proposed by the GTI Secretariat.
Besides the “Study on NEA Integrated Logistic Network” project proposal, the Far-Eastern Federal University presented the proposal of “Master’s Program at the Far Eastern Federal University “Transport and Spatial Logistics” for GTI Member Countries” aimed at strengthening exchanges in transport education among GTI member countries and building capacity of transport professionals. The members of the Transport Board generally supported the two proposals and instructed the GTI Secretariat to proceed with further elaboration on the proposals and initiation of the process of the exchange of comments among the GTI countries on the details, such as scope of projects, work plans, sources of financing, etc.
The Transport Board agreed to continue the path of the implementation of the GTI Regional Transport Strategy and its Medium Term Transport Action Plan.
Participants from the central transport ministries of the GTI Countries, local transport administrations, representatives of the academia and research institutes (Transport Planning and Research Institute of China, China Academy of Transportation Science, Research Institute of Highway of the Ministry of Transport of China, Mongolian University of Science and Technology, Korea Railroad Research Institute, Korea Transport Institute, “DNIIMF-Vostochny” Co. Ltd., Far-Eastern Federal University (Russia), Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia (ERINA), as well as partners from GIZ (the German agency for international cooperation), and LOGINK attended the meeting.
The 9th Transport Board Meeting will take place in Mongolia in 2019.