Conference Resolution adopted on 7 October 2003

CONFERENCE RESOLUTION ADOPTED ON 7 OCTOBER 2003

The Conference participants,

Considering:

• the IRU's new geo-strategic orientation focussing greater attention on activities beyond the borderlines of Europe such as in Asia and the Far East, as well as putting increasing emphasis on regional cooperation and development of inter-regional and inter-continental road transport services;
• the special interests of Central Asian land-locked countries and the role of countries with access to the sea to ensure smooth transit traffic through their territories;
• the growing needs of economic cooperation and trade in consolidating the road transport sector at national, regional and continental level in Asia as well as in reinforcing road transport links with other continents such as Europe;
• the enormous potential of road transport for contributing to general economic development, social progress and wealth distribution in Asia and other emerging regions of the World;

Have decided to call upon Governments, international organisations, finance institutes and the business world to cooperate in order to:

• employ in the road transport industry reliable and good quality goods vehicles in all weight categories;
• develop a network of acceptable and safe road infrastructure, with regard to international traffic both in the east-west and west-east directions, including the traditional Silk Road, as well as both in the south-north and north-south directions, considering the advantages offered by developing additional optional routes for trans-continental traffic between Asia and Europe;
• create a generation of hard working, knowledgeable and honest professionals, both drivers and managers also by joining their training centres to the network of IRU Academy-accredited road transport training institutes;
• introduce a progressive and equitable institutional and regulatory setting for the road transport industry among other things by abolishing, step-by-step, quantitative limitations restricting admission to the occupation or the access to the market in the road transport industry; instead, introduce a strict and enforceable set of qualitative requirements such as the minimum level of available capital per vehicle employed, a high level of training and testing of employees and good repute of company managers;
• allow a well-considered internationalisation of road transport, starting with the development of a healthy national carrier sector in the countries concerned which, with the development of regional trade, should lead to reinforced regional transport cooperation among neighbouring countries with the introduction of two parallel processes: a step-by-step harmonisation of qualitative conditions of market competition and the introduction of international facilitation measures aimed at dismantling quantitative and bureaucratic cross-border barriers causing significant economic loss and damage to international trade and transport by road; land-locked countries should be able to accede easily to seaports vital for their export and import trade;
• implement smooth transit conditions as well as simplification and harmonisation of border crossing conditions, in particular the facilitated issue of annual and multi-entry visas to professional drivers (whereby bi- or multilateral governmental agreements on the facilitated issuance of visa should be signed; the intermediary facilitation role of associations between drivers and consulates should be acknowledged; the copy of transport documents as support for visa applications should be accepted, the number of support documents as well as the time and cost of delivery should be reduced, etc.);
• promote the use of the road transport potential for meeting the needs of developing trade and economic relations between Asia and Europe, paying special and constructive attention to the harmonisation of necessary technical standards and applicable documentation; 
• contribute to sustainable economic-social development by implementing in the road transport sector the IRU's "3i" strategy: innovation to develop more effective "at source" technical measures and operating practices to reduce environmental impact of road traffic; incentives to encourage faster introduction by transport operators of best available technology and practices; infrastructure to provide conditions for free-flowing traffic including the removal of bottle-necks and missing links in the Euro-Asian transport corridors as well as the fullest use of existing road capacities:
• draw on joint resources of governmental organisations and the network of national road transport associations, members of the International Road Transport Union, and business circles in general to achieve these objectives of development in the road transport sector.

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