Baku TRACECA and CAREC Agreement

Baku/10.09.18/Turan: Permanent Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Commission TRACECA and Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Institute have agreed on cooperation.

The parties signed a memorandum of understanding Sept. 10 in Baku.

Secretary-General of the Permanent Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Commission TRACECA Mircea Ciopraga and Director of the CAREC Institute Bayaraa Sanjaasuren signed the document.

"Transportation networks in many TRACECA and CAREC countries are in need of modernization. The improvement of transportation systems requires significant financial resources that are not met by government funds. In this regard, TRACECA and CAREC will work closely with international financial institutions and facilitate private sector participation in financing and management of transport projects," Ciopraga noted.

TRACECA is an international transportation cooperation program between the EU and partner countries in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia. The organization, which includes 13 participants, has the Permanent Secretariat in Baku.

For many years, the European Commission has been a reliable partner of TRACECA. Today, under the TRACECA program, the European Commission has financed 85 projects for a total of more than 187 million euros. These projects helped attract large investments from international financial institutions, more than 4 billion euros for transport infrastructure projects.

CAREC, founded in 1997, is a partnership of 11 countries - Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and six multilateral institutions: Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Monetary Fund, Islamic Development Bank, United Nations Development Program and the World Bank.

After joining the CAREC program in 2002, Azerbaijan has invested about $3 billion in its projects. -0-