The Head of IRU noted Turkmenistan's progress in digitalization of international road transport
The road transport sector of the economy has been looking forward to the opportunity to recover after the pandemic, and it plays a key role in the recovery process, but it faces new challenges - long queues at the borders, an acute shortage of personnel in the industry. Transit in many countries has increased by more than 50%. However, after a survey of commercial road transport operators in over 25 countries in America, Asia and Europe, it was found that more than two and a half million professional drivers are missing in this sector. Umberto de Pretto, Secretary General of the International Road Transport Union (IRU), touched upon such problems of the industry in his video message to the participants of the transport forum in Ashgabat.
In his opinion, digitalization of the sector, investments in procedural software solutions that will help to cope with the growing traffic will help to solve these issues.
At the same time, Umberto de Pretto noted that Turkmenistan has made excellent progress in this direction, both by modernizing infrastructure and introducing new technologies, including TIR and CMR, which are protection against risks in international transportation, which will increase the security and transparency of the entire supply chain, as well as significantly improve the flow of goods.
The transition from paper documents to digital data exchange is necessary to reduce time and costs in order to better connect the West and the East, the IRU head said. The dialogue of business partners is a key need for optimizing the data flow, paving the way for pragmatic digital solutions, he added.
Central Asian countries, in partnership with private and public sector entities with the support of international organizations, are leading in the digitalization of trade and transit. They show the concrete progress of the digitization of TIR, creating dedicated lanes for transportation safety, bringing the simplification of transport procedures to a new level.
Here, Umberto de Pretto once again noted the significant progress that Turkmenistan has achieved, in particular, in the implementation of express systems at all border crossings, and expressed confidence that the active digitalization of transit in Central Asia will allow the region to introduce electronic TIR this year.
Turkmenistan is approaching full digitalization of transport operations with electronic invoices. In this context, the use of electronic permits and electronic visas is becoming even more relevant, the IRU Secretary General noted.
The global global road transport industry welcomes every new millimeter of new infrastructure, which however must be accompanied by a soft infrastructure, he said.
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