Transport

Improved transport infrastructure and minimization of border crossing impediments are fundamental to trade facilitation and other forms of economic cooperation in the Greater Tumen Region (GTR) and NEA as a whole. Because of the location of the Tumen River area at a crossroads of trade and transport routes between Europe, Northeast Asia and North America, a central unifying concept for the Greater Tumen Initiative is the development of the region as a trade entrepot.

Ports in the Russia’s Far East and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) provide landlocked Northeast China with an east-west transport corridor. The Tumen River transportation corridor is also of considerable interest to Mongolia, because it can help open up the eastern part of the country and improve port access.

In addition, Japan, the United States, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the global trade community have strong interests in seeing the Tumen River transportation corridor brought up to international standards. The potential time and cost savings for transit trade are considerable.

In the 8th meeting of the GTI Consultative Commission (September 2005, Changchun China), transport was indicated as one of the priority sectors for GTI activities.

The GTI Strategic Action Plan 2006-2015 stipulates a ten to fifteen per cent annual increase in cross-boarder cargo through the Tumen ports between the GTR and the wider world as a strategic objective in transport sector. To achieve the objective, it is important to improve the infrastructure and lower transportation cost in the Tumen region. For these purpose a number of strategic actions have been agreed by member countries in the sphere of port facilities, cross-border regulations, roads and railways network.

At the 9th meeting of the GTI Consultative Commission (November 2007, Vladivostok, Russia) member countries agreed to establish a framework for transport sector in 2008, and adopted a range of concrete projects as GTI projects. The task of the Tumen Secretariat is to undertake further marketing actions and to identify donors/find resources for their implementation.

At the 10th meeting of the GTI Consultative Commission (March 2009, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) the GTI Transport Board was established with the purpose of supporting the economic cooperation among the GTI countries through proper transport infrastructure and logistical networks. The participant governments agreed to hold more concrete discussions at the GTI Transport Board meetings regarding the transport issues of common interest, including GTI projects in transport sector.