Hosted by the Vietnam Railways Corporation (VNR), the conference attracted the participation of nearly 120 international delegates from 20 units under the OSJD member states, seven joint ventures, and two international organisations.
Speaking at the event, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Ngoc Dong stressed that in the OSJD, railway development has received a lot of investment with a range of appropriate mechanisms instituted to facilitate rail links across Europe and Asia.
In Vietnam, in addition to institutional reform and human resource development, infrastructure is considered a strategic breakthrough. The Government and the Ministry of Transport have issued a number of policies to create a liberal legal corridor, especially the mechanism to attract investment, in an effort to mobilise resources from all economic components for infrastructure development.
The Vietnamese sector is actively undertaking the process of restructuring while enhancing investment and building links with international railroads to enhance competitiveness, attract customers, and increase its transport market share.
The conference offers a forum for OSJD's leaders to discuss and share experiences to better manage and exploit existing rail networks, as well as seek cooperation opportunities to invest in infrastructure and connecting transport on the inter-Eurasia transport corridor.
The event adopted 16 resolutions to ensure the organisation's operations over 2018-2019, focusing on various fields, such as freight and passenger traffic, infrastructure, mutual accounting, and the mechanism for debt repayments.
In parallel to the meeting’s agendas, the VNR held bilateral meetings with other rail units on exchanges of cooperation opportunities to develop logistics by rail between Vietnam and OSJD member countries, as well as discussing running container liners from Vietnam through OSJD member countries to Europe.
The OSJD, established in 1956, has a total rail length of more than 281,000 km, with about four billion passengers and six billion tonnes of freight carried every year.
