Economy

On September 25 2015, 193 countries adopted 17 global goals and 169 relevant objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New goals and objectives have an integrated and indivisible nature and provide a balance of all three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental.

One of the key structural elements of sustainable development, along with energy, food supply and nutrition, water and oceans is formation of a reliable transport infrastructure. Development of transport and transit corridors will bring great economic and political preferences to States and regions, will increase the competitiveness of national transport systems and will promote the compatibility of their strategic interests by connecting spaces and industrial and resource potentials. Thus, transport plays a central role for sustainable development.

In the outcome document of the World Forum "Rio + 20" it was stated that transport and mobility are essential for sustainable development. The Forum participants also confirmed the need to promote an integrated approach to the development of national, regional and local policies in relation to transport services and systems with a view to contributing to sustainable development.

At the same time, it was noted that when creating stable transit transport systems it is important to take into account the special needs of developing landlocked countries and developing countries of transit in the field of development. In this context, providing international support to developing countries in this area plays a particular importance.

The importance of transport and mobility in accelerating the progress of specific goals and objectives of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development is evident.

Speaking about Turkmenistan’s position in this area, it should be emphasized that the current year 2016 will enter into the chronicles of independent and neutral Turkmenistan as one of the most successful years in the country’s history of foreign policy. On 22 December 2015, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted with consensus of UN member states a resolution initiated by Turkmenistan and entitled “Towards comprehensive cooperation among all modes of transport for promoting sustainable multimodal transit corridors”. Co-authors of the document were 85 member states of the UN.

As pointed out by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the global transport strategy of XXI century is the strategy of the integration breakthrough, combining the geographical and infrastructural capacity, technical and technological potentials of countries and regions. Future is for the combined transportation system with access to major international and regional sea, river, road, rail and air units, an optimal mix and use of the advantages of each.

Following this strategy, Turkmenistan puts forward important international initiatives and is taking the necessary measures for their implementation. This was clearly demonstrated by organisation of the high-level international conference entitled «The Role of Transport and Transit Corridors in Ensuring International Cooperation, Stability and Sustainable Development», held in Ashgabat in September 2014.

The forum adopted the Ashgabat Declaration, which reflected an understanding of the need for an elaboration of criteria of cooperation in this area, focused on diversification, security, availability, reliability and environmental friendliness of transport infrastructure, its closer proximity to the reality of the current global development, meeting new modern requirements. Particular emphasis was placed on the importance of taking into account the needs of developing countries, including those that are landlocked. The value of the Ashgabat Declaration consists in the fact that it has brought important new priorities in the work of the Community of Nations and became a fundamental document for the development of the first UN General Assembly resolution "The role of transport and transit corridors to ensure international cooperation for sustainable development", which was adopted on 19 December 2014.

By opening access to markets and supply chains, transport plays a key role in socio-economic development and serves the engine for sustainable growth. Because of this, transport has an impact on social, economic and environmental sustainability and is one of the factors of its software. And as noted above, transport is of paramount importance in the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

The most important task is to fully realize the advantageous geographical position of countries that are a natural transit bridge between Europe and Asia. Located at the crossroads of North-South and East-West, as the entire region of Central Asia and the Caspian Basin, Turkmenistan, is a strong element of strategic stability in the southern belt of Eurasia, and is a promising economic partner for European and Asian countries, as well as a major energy and transport and transit hub of continental importance. This becomes an important factor of the development of export-import and transit opportunities of Turkmenistan. In view of this, Turkmenistan has identified development of transport infrastructure as one of the absolute priorities of the state policy of the country.

For the purpose of effective implementation of its capacities, Turkmenistan is guided by long-term programs aimed at ensuring the competitiveness of the national transport and communication complex on the world market, as well as the progressive integration into the world transport system, and the further expansion of infrastructure through the main thoroughfares, connecting routes and hubs in the East-West and North-South. The priority in this regard is the construction of an extensive complex, combined infrastructure of transport links and transit, covering the spaces of continental Eurasia with access to the sea terminals of the Black Sea and Baltic regions, South and South-East Asia and Middle East. In the future, this opens up the possibility of joining the international transport infrastructure in the south and east with access to China, India, Pakistan and countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The use of the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway is greatly important in the formation of the international transport corridor North-South, which provides the shortest way from the north-western areas of Europe to the Persian Gulf through the network of railways of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran.

The transport corridor Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman is designed to facilitate further expansion of mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation between the countries of Central Asia and the Middle East.

In this regard the signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement and the Memorandum concerning the creation of a corridor Central Asia-Middle East should be noted. This large-scale project is considered as one of the most effective factors in ensuring sustainable development both in the regional and international scale.

The transport corridor Afghanistan-Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan-Georgia, as well as initiated by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and implemented together with partner countries a project to build a railway line Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan are intended to operate for the effective implementation of the transit-transport potential of the Central Asian region and the Eurasian continent as a whole.

One of the significant intermodal hubs of transport infrastructure in Turkmenistan is the International seaport of city of Turkmenbashi. Constructed on the Caspian coast, it will create exclusively favourable conditions for the access of European countries to the commodity markets of the Middle East and the countries of the Indian Ocean. Construction of its own Navy for Turkmenistan is not only an economic task, but also has an important strategic and political importance.

On the territory of Turkmenistan a significant amount of automobile transport in international transit communication is carried out. In this regard, a number of priority strategic objectives consist of the construction and reconstruction of highways Turkmenbashi-Garabogaz-Kazakhstan border, Turkmenabat-Gazachak-Dashoguz and Mary-Serhetabat.

It is important to note the support by Turkmenistan of an initiative to create a Modal Highway in Central Asia with access to Turkey. This initiative of the International Road Transport Union is fully consistent with the vision of Turkmenistan on the perspectives of development of transport routes in this area. In addition, our country has expressed its willingness to act as an active partner and participant in the TRACECA program. Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) is a set of multi-modal transport system in the region. Profitable for foreign airlines are also transit and air routes through the airspace of Turkmenistan.

The country has put into operation new roads and railways, construction of new infrastructure facilities of the transport sector, as well as introduction of modern forms of investments for the sake of the development of this important sector of the economy. Turkmenistan is also working to bring national legislation in this area in conformity with the generally accepted norms and standards of international law. International cooperation in the transport sector is being strengthened and expanded. All this contributes to further strengthening the role and place of Turkmenistan at the regional and global space.

Thus, the basis for the integration of transport and transit system of the Turkmen state into the world system is the creation of an extensive transport and communication infrastructure and network of logistics terminals. In this regard, the development of the Turkmen sections of international transport corridors should be carried out in an interconnected manner along with the main directions of socio-economic development of the country and meet international standards and criteria in the field of transport communications. Aimed at addressing the global challenges facing the international community, Turkmenistan creates favourable conditions for the formation of transport and transit corridor that meet the requirements of time.