Gennady Bessonov, Secretary-General of the International Coordinating Council on Transsiberian Transportation (CCTT), and his Deputy Andrey Sergeev, met Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director-General, and Oliver Sellnick, UIC Freight Director and Coordinator for Russia, in Paris to discuss how rail traffic between Europe and Asia over the Transsiberian connection could be promoted.

The competiveness of rail must be increased by integrating information flows and simplifying administrative cross-border processes. For this reason, the CCTT will initiate a new permanent Working Group which will be supported by UIC. In the ICOMOD project on Intercontinental Container Traffic UIC will analyse which markets are the most attractive for rail transport via the landbridge and how they will evolve in the next years given the rapid development of the industrial basis in inland China (e.g. Chongqing). Attention will be drawn to the question of how the modal choice is taken by shipper and forwarder.

The CCTT and UIC agreed to cooperate on a number of events such as the UIC Global Team of Experts (GTE) session in Prague on 22 March, the next CCTT plenary in Odessa in September and the next Global Rail Freight Conference in 2012.