Asian transport ministers meeting in South Korea this week will take a major step towards making a decades-old dream a reality -- integrating the entire continent into a single rail network.
Transport ministers and officials from 43 countries will gather in the port city of Busan starting today for this year's ministerial conference on transport organized by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
The highlight of the six-day conference will be Friday's signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) -- more poetically known as the "Iron Silk Road."
The 81,000km network, first mooted by the UN in 1960, would link capitals, ports and industrial hubs across 28 Asian countries all the way to Europe.
`COMMITMENT'
By signing, Asian states will "demonstrate their commitment to working together" on the mammoth project, said Barry Cable, director of UNESCAP's Transport and Tourism Division.
"We expect this will trigger new development in the railway sector both in terms of increasing capacity and in terms of increasing connectivity," he said.
Cable said such an international commitment would make it easier for countries to attract finance for railways from international banks.
"The agreement lays a framework for coordinated development of internationally important rail routes," UNESCAP chief Kim Hak-su said in a statement.
TARDY
Tardy progress over the past five decades indicates the challenges ahead, despite Friday's scheduled signing. The Cold War, a major obstacle, is over but Asia has its fair share of civil conflicts and tensions.
Other problems include switching between different-gauge tracks, where to stop, how to handle sometimes tricky quarantine and immigration paperwork, and how to safely ferry cargo and people across many borders.
But fast-growing Asia, home to 60 percent of the world's population and generating 26 percent of the world's GDP, deserves better transport, Kim said.
"Asia's demand for efficient transport is greater than at any time in its history," he said.
The Asian continent boasts 13 of the world's top 20 container seaports.
But it has fewer than 100 "dry ports" -- inland container depots -- while Europe has 200 and the US has 370.
LESS CONGESTION
The Bangkok-based UN agency believes that the creating of more "ports of international importance" along the Trans-Asian Railway will reduce seaport congestion and transport expenses, as well as promoting trade and employment.
"This could actually stimulate more economic growth of the countries and share the benefits of globalization with a wider part of the community," Cable said, citing uneven development between coastal and inland areas.
Twelve of the world's 30 landlocked countries are in Asia, he said.
The TAR network would connect the vast existing railway lines across Asia with Russia and Mongolia in the north, Malaysia and the Philippines in the south, South Korea in the east and Iran and Turkey in the west.
DECLARATIONS
At the Busan conference, delegates will also issue two other declarations -- one on the direction of regional transport development in the next five years and the other on road safety.
UNESCAP estimates that last year 440,000 people died and at least 2 million were injured on Asia-Pacific roads.
This is around half of the world's fatalities, even though only one-fifth of the world's motor vehicles are registered in the region.
It estimates that at this rate, by 2020 two-thirds of the world's road deaths will be in the Asia-Pacific region.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
RSS