BAKU - ''We have agreed to establish railway transportation among ECO member countries rapidly,'' said Turkish State Minister Besir Atalay on Thursday.
Speaking after the 16th ministerial meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) which was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, Atalay said, ''there is a big difficulty in transportation of people and cargo among ECO member countries. Turkey wants to speed up the implementation of railway project which was prepared earlier. This railway line is established between Istanbul and Almaty (via Tehran and Tashkent). Istanbul-Tehran part of the railway is functioning. But Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan part is not completed so we cannot use the whole railway line effectively. Completing the line will be very beneficial for commerce.''
''Participant countries will discuss development of commerce & investment, reduction of tariffs as well as easing investments during the 9th ECO Summit which will be held tomorrow with participation of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,'' added Atalay.
He said, ''total population of ECO member countries is 380 million and total foreign trade volume is nearly 300 billion USD. However, only 6 percent of this trade volume is made among ECO member countries. Turkey's foreign trade volume with these countries is 2.7 billion USD.''