ISTANBUL - Turkey is getting ready to host the world congress of the International Road Transport Union (IRU) on May 15th-16th.
A press conference was held in Istanbul on Monday to promote the congress with the theme of "Road Transport, Driving Peace and Prosperity".
Speaking at the conference Rifat Hisarciklioglu, chairman of Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), said a special session aiming to revive the historic Silk Road --world`s oldest trade route linking Asia and Europe-- would be held during the event with participation of transportation ministers from 50 countries.
Hisarciklioglu said under the event, also fairs on road transportation, intermodal systems, loading, stowage, storage and logistic industry would be held.
Hisarciklioglu, said nearly half of Turkish exports were carried via road transportation and pointed out that Turkey was one of the countries that used lorry trucks licenses the most. He said logistics was one of the most basic elements of the global competition and it continued to gain importance.
Hisarciklioglu said the increase in the share of Asian economies in international trade brought the revival of the ancient Silk Road into the world agenda.
"The capacity of the docks and ports and their infrastructure in the Far East fails to meet the demand that was created by the rise in China`s total volume of foreign trade which reached 2.1 trillion USD in 2007. Therefore China is in search of ways to carry its goods via road transportation. This opens a new window of opportunity for our country. Turkey with its geographic location, and its fleet exceeding 40,000 lorry trucks, has the potential to become an important country on the Silk Road which is anticipated to be revived," said Hisarciklioglu.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, EU commissioner for Transportation Jacques Barrot and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Marek Belka are expected to attend the congress.
(OZG-MS)