First Meeting of the CAREC Regional Joint Transport and Trade Facilitation Committee

During the First Meeting of the CAREC Regional Joint Transport and Trade Facilitation Committee (RJC), participants discussed and finalized the terms of reference of the RJC, the RJC statement, and the 2010-2011 work program, which will be submitted to the CAREC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) in April for endorsement.

The meeting also agreed to recommend to the SOM the following indicators for the trade facilitation component of the CAREC Results Framework: (i) time taken to clear border crossings, (ii) costs incurred for border crossing clearances, (iii) speed taken to travel corridor sections, and (iv) costs incurred traveling on corridor sections.

Twenty-four delegates, including ministerial-level representatives of respective National Joint Transport and Trade Facilitation Committees of the eight CAREC member countries, participated in the meeting jointly organized by the Asian Development Bank’s East Asia Department and Central and West Asia Department. Uzbekistan Deputy Minister for Foreign Economic Relations, Trade and Investments Akmal Kamalov delivered the welcome remarks.