Tbilisi hosted the 16th Annual Meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) of the Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia (TRACECA) program.

Participants in the meeting talked about developing multimodal transport, streamlining border crossing procedures, expanding maritime transportation and other topics related to developing the TRACECA corridor.

TRACECA countries considered the results of the functioning of the TRACECA permit system for international road transport in 2021, the status of implementation by the MLA Parties of the IGC decisions, information on accession to international agreements, as well as the Report on the implementation of the Action Plan for 2018-2021 for implementation of the Strategy of the Intergovernmental Commission TRACECA for development of the international transport corridor Europe-the Caucasus-Asia for 2016-2026.

Turkmenistan’s readiness to join the Europe-Caucasus-Asia Transport Corridor’s main multilateral agreement merited special consideration.

Georgia will take over as the TRACECA Intergovernmental Commission’s Chair country for the following two years, beginning on February 11, 2023.

Georgia’s Minister of Economy emphasized the significance of Georgia’s chairmanship for the country’s ability to better coordinate and communicate with its allies.

“When it comes to bridging Europe and Asia, Georgia has always taken the lead. Georgia, however, will not be able to connect Europe and Asia on its own; as a result, Georgia must work very closely with partner nations along the corridor, namely Azerbaijan, Central Asian nations, and then the European Union”, - said Levan Davitashvili.