International Forum on Infrastructural Integration Problems in Eurasia Completed Its Work in Moscow

Major researchers and experts from EurAsEC and CIS countries formulated recommendations for the development of regional co-operation

On 15-16 May, Moscow hosted the International Roundtable The Development of Transborder Infrastructure in Eurasia organised by the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB).

“The Bank is tailored for economic integration, and therefore the formulation of this Roundtable’s subject sounds very naturally. It embraces both the infrastructure aspect and enthusiasm for transborder integration”, said Igor Finogenov, Chairman of the EDB Executive Board, in his address to the forum participants. ”We are sure that real infrastructural integration projects can unite our countries seriously and for long. They will have a real economic effect and allow us to lay a sound foundation for the sustainable development of Russia, Kazakhstan and other countries in the region”.

Igor Finogenov also stressed in this connection that “the primary steps towards strengthening regional integration are measures to integrate transport networks, the power sector, and water use systems”.

For two days, more than sixty major researchers and leading specialists in the region’s economic and political relationships from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan discussed the urgent problems, main directions and potential of infrastructural development.

Other subjects of discussion included the institutes of infrastructural integration; transport corridors in Eurasia; the common power markets of EurAsEC and the CIS; the development of the water power complex of Central Asia; experience and mechanisms of co-operation in international river basis; investments in transborder infrastructure; and transborder co-operation.

Reports were delivered by academician Victor Ivanter, Director of the Institute of Forecasting in People’s Economy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia), professor Sailau Baizakov, Research Supervisor of the Institute of Economic Studies (Kazakhstan), and Georgy Petrov, Direction Head of the Institute of Water Problems, Water Power Engineering and Environment of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, among others.

The Roundtable was attended by heads of executive bodies of various integration structures and national state administration. The audience was greeted by Sergei Lebedev, Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee, and Tair Mansurov, Secretary General of EurAsEC.

At the end of the Roundtable’s work its participants formulated conclusions and recommendations on the problems of infrastructural integration and development in Eurasia.

In particular, the experts emphasised that, despite a notable pickup in recent years, mutual investments in the power sector remain at a low level, and the insignificant mutual power sales do not correspond to the vast potential of the sector. Efforts to create a common power market are hindered by a number of barriers, one of them being the unequal levels of market liberalisation.

The philosophy of a common power market warrants going beyond the post-Soviet space and expanding its boundaries, noted the participants. They also concluded that “practically all CIS countries can have real advantages as exporters of power or transit providers, if common power market mechanisms are established with other countries such as China, Iran, India, Turkey and EU”.

In the development of a common transport space, the experts identified the following priority tasks:

• to elaborate and implement proposals to create an efficient logistics centres network and launch through (high-speed) container routes;
• to identify problems in the development of transport infrastructure and eliminate barriers that restrict free passage of vehicles in the respective countries;
• to co-ordinate the efforts of transit countries aimed at adjusting their transport systems to international standards;
• to organise mixed (multimodal) shipments;
• to develop a trunk-line transport system and perfect traffic control practices in it;
• to create financial mechanisms for joint development of transport infrastructure;
• to implement a package of transport safety measures; and
• to establish a system of fees for the use of transport infrastructure.
• As concerns the water power sector, the participants identified the following priorities of co-operation in the Aral basin:
• to continue efforts to introduce a system of trans-boundary water monitoring with a view to implementing efficient water resource management and protection measures;
• to strengthen regional co-operation based on international practice of managing trans-boundary rivers, including accedence by the region’s countries to the UN ECE Helsinki Convention on the Protection and Use of Trans-boundary Watercourses and International Lakes;
• to speed up the preparation and adoption of inter-governmental agreements on creating international mechanisms for common use of trans-boundary rivers and their water power potential, based on the EurAsEC-initiated Concept of Efficient Use of the Water Power Resources of the Central Asian Region;
• to maintain a balance of interests of irrigation and the water power industry, including the establishment of an international water power consortium; and
• to enhance the status and efficiency of regional structures within the framework of the International Aral Sea Rehabilitation Fund.

This Roundtable is the second international research and practical forum held by EDB. The first roundtable of this series, titled Perspective Directions and Mechanisms of Regional Integration in EurAsEC, took place in October 2007 in Almaty.