CIS, BALTIC RZD COUNCIL FOCUSES ON PROSPECTS FOR COOPERATION
by Tigran Liloyan and Roman Romishevsky

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
October 11, 2006 Wednesday

Prospects for cooperation in international passenger service and
railway haulage and norms of the railway timetable in 2007-2008 are
central of the 44th session of the CIS and Baltic Railway Council.

In his greetings message on Wednesday, Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan said the implementation of problems to be raised at the
session "will facilitate integration of transport systems of CIS
states and the development of international and regional cooperation
as a whole." "Nothing may bring closer peoples as free international
trade based on free movement of people and goods," he stressed.

Chairman of the Council, Russian Railways (RZD) head Vladimir Yakunin
said in the eight months a total of 1.4 billion tonnes of cargoes,
including ferrous and non-ferrous metals, cement, coal, oil and oil
products, were transported (4.5 percent more than in the same period
of the year 2005).

In his words, one of the pressing issues is rolling stock. Every
year "we should acquire 70,000-80,000 railroad cars to renovate our
rolling stock because only 62 percent of freight cars responds to
our requirements," Yakunin said.

The Council’s commercial director, David Dzhindzholiya, told
journalists, "I hope that Russian railway personnel will lift its
ban on passenger service between the two countries."

The session involves heads of railways of Russia, Armenia, Belarus,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Estonia, as well as
Bulgaria and Finland.

The CIS and Baltic Railway Council was set up on the basis of the
February 14, 1992 inter-governmental agreement to coordinate the work
of CIS railways. Its major task is to coordinate rail transport at
the intergovernmental level and to work out consistent principles
for its operations.