OREANDA-NEWS. November 25, 2013. The 59th Session of the Council for Rail Transport of CIS States (CRT CIS) opened in Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova.

The Session is being attended by the leaders of the railway administrations from the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, as well as by the Council's associate members, namely the heads of railways in Georgia, Latvia, Bulgaria and Finland.

Also at the Session are representatives from the railway administrations of Lithuania, Estonia and Iran, the CIS Executive Committee and the International Union of Railways.

Valeriu Lazar, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of the Republic of Moldova, welcomed the participants to the Session. He noted that the challenges faced by railway authorities everywhere were very similar, in particular the need to improve the quality of services and the competitiveness of railways, which is directly connected with economic development in every country.

Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director General of the International Union of Railways (UIC), drew attention to the fact that uniting railways in the association facilitates the active development of cooperation in security, safety and the interoperability of technical systems.

Peter Kucherenko, Chairman of the Directorate of the CRT CIS, summed up the work of the organisation since the 58th Session was held in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe in May this year, noting that it had conducted 64 committee and working group meetings with the participation of representatives from railway administrations and drafted amendments to a number of regulations. Thus, changes were agreed to the Regulation on Extending the Life of Freight Wagons on International Routes, the Regulations on Transporting Dangerous Goods and the Regulations on Transporting Liquid Freight In Bulk in Tank Cars and Hopper-Type Wagons for Transporting Petroleum Bitumen.

The Agenda of the Council's 59th session is expected to consider a wide range of issue, including the rail network's operational results for the first 9 months of 2013, train timetable standards for 2014-2015, the results of the inventory of freight wagons and containers, the implementation of the agreement on a unified management system and the use of the freight wagon fleet.