Turkey is about to become the leader in international land transport business.
After having increased the number of documents used in international shipments by 70 percent, Turkey ranks third in international land transport business after Russia and Germany.
In an exclusive interview with the AA, deputy under-secretary of the Turkish Ministry of Transportation, Suat Hayri Aka, said that the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) was established in 1953 to ease land transportation between member countries and to facilitate liberalization that is sensitive and sustainable.
As the only platform with the authorization to prepare documents utilized in land transportation, the ECMT has 44 members: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Macedonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Britain and Iceland.
Despite experiencing problems in transportation with countries such as Bulgaria, Turkey is becoming more influential in the ECMT every passing year.
Turkey helped make changes in the distribution of "multi-lateral quota" documents issued by the ECMT.
The populations of countries, growth rates and import-export figures have been made part of the system thanks to Turkey's efforts.
Turkey increased the number of documents it receives from the ECMT by 70 percent.
With this increase, Turkey now ranks third in the ECMT with the most number of quota.
According to Aka, there are around 1,600 Turkish land transportation companies that have ECMT documents.
"The system, defined as a multi-lateral quota system, makes it possible for the trucks of ECMT countries to enter member states without any formalities. An ECMT document makes it possible for a truck to carry and transfer goods up to five times without making new documents each time. A Turkish truck can travel from Turkey to Germany via ECMT member countries without having to prepare new documents in transit countries," Aka said.
This system saves time and money, Aka also said.
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Friday, 23 January 2009
ANKARA (A.A)
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