Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications

The Minister of Transport will open the meeting of the international transportation associations union /BSCEC-URTA/. The event will take place tomorrow, November 2nd, 2007, at 10am in Grand Hotel Sofia.

An analysis of the results from the Black sea automobile caravan http://www.blackseacravan.org will be presented during the forum. The tour took place from April 19th – May 28th, 2007 on the initiative of OCIS with the support of IRU and the International transport associations from the black sea region. The goal was to identify the problems before the international automobile freight transport in the region, as well as to offer ideas for their elimination. The initiative is a good example for public private partnership.

The caravan, equipped with special following devices and escorted by transport experts was aiming to:

• Popularize the building of a highway circle around Black Sea, among the OCIS countries;
• To evaluate the existing infrastructure in the countries surrounding Black Sea, which to serve as a base for the building of the highway circle;
• To collect data during the travel connected with the transport and the conditions for its accomplishment – border demurrage, custom procedures and control, tolls and visa requirements for the drivers.

The whole existing information on these questions was collected by the experts during the 8500 km. tour of the caravan through 12 countries from the Black Sea Region. The Data were analyzed by the institute for researches and education in the field of transport (NEA) in Holland and added to a report, published in the printed edition for the caravan “Achievements and Conclusions of the Black Sea Automobile Caravan”.
The results from the scientific analysis showed that the economic losses, originated from visa procedures for the professional drivers, the quota restrictions and the border demurrages are up to 229 millions of Euro a year for the Black Sea Region (almost 850 000 US Dollar a day).