CIS Economic Council Approved Draft ‘Priority Areas of Cooperation in Transport Sphere till 2020’

At the meeting in Moscow Economic Council of the Commonwealth has approved draft priority areas of CIS countries’ cooperation in transport sphere till the year 2020. Summing up the meeting Sergey Aristov, Deputy Minister of Transport of Russia, informed the journalists that the document is planned to be submitted to approval of CIS Council of Heads of Governments in autumn 2008, writes BelTA.

At the meeting in Moscow Economic Council of the Commonwealth has approved draft priority areas of CIS countries’ cooperation in transport sphere till the year 2020. Summing up the meeting Sergey Aristov, Deputy Minister of Transport of Russia, informed the journalists that the document is planned to be submitted to approval of CIS Council of Heads of Governments in autumn 2008, writes BelTA.

According to him, thanks to the implementation of this project transport costs when trading among CIS countries can be cut half as much. At present, for lack of unified tariffs, transport expenditures make up 20-25% of the product’s cost.

Sergey Aristov also added that CIS transport strategy till 2020 presupposed the unification of railway, motor, and air transport tariffs. However during the harmonization process it became obvious that many CIS countries wouldn’t be ready to unify tariffs even by the year 2020 which is impeded by weak infrastructure and a number of restrictions imposed by the EU. As a result, the document stipulates partial unification of tariffs and certain rules for goods traffic.

At the same time, the goal to form single transport area with identical rules remains. “Our main objective is to create such area for cargo traffic where it would be possible to establish unified rules for all the participants,” said Sergey Aristov.