Improving Transnational Transport Corridors

In the OIC Member Countries: Concepts and Cases

In this case the corridor was initiated by the EU that at the time was external to the member

states (some have become EU members afterwards) which risks resulting in an attitude of “not

invented here” and that the member states become used to external donors. When they have to

pay for the further development themselves, the commitment is tested. An external donor can

put pressure on multilateral cooperation, like EU did when requiring that Armenia was

involved to even start the funding, but there is a certain risk that national interests are

prioritized over corridor interests. TRACECA was successful to survive the phase when EU

stopped funding TAPs, but the ambition level seems to have been reduced.

4.4. CAREC Corridor 3

4.4.1.

General factors

The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program is a program established in

1997 by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to encourage economic cooperation among

countries in the Central Asian region. It is a committed partnership of 11 countries:

Afghanistan

Azerbaijan

, People’s Republic of China, Georgia,

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyz Republic

Mongolia,

Pakistan

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

, and

Uzbekistan

. The CAREC region is at the

heart of the rapidly growing and integrating Eurasian continent. ADB serves as the CAREC

Secretariat.

The CAREC program covers four sectors: transport, trade facilitation, energy, and trade policy.

Transport and trade facilitation sectors share a development vision that identifies three

transport goals:

establish competitive transport corridors across the CAREC region;

facilitate efficient movement of people and goods across borders; and

develop safe, people-friendly transport systems.

CAREC focuses on the development of six competitive transport corridors that link north,

south, east, and west through the pivot of Central Asia. According to the CAREC Secretariat, the

corridors were defined to establish competitive corridors. They reflect trade flow patterns,

facilitate movement of people and goods across the region, and provide sustainable, safe and

user-friendly transport networks. Critically, they also connect the mainly landlocked CAREC

countries to wider regional and global networks.

The countries in bold are OIC Member States