Greetings - Paul Laeremans

Greetings to the Participants in the Caravan Beijing-Berlin-Brussels

Paul Laeremans IRU President

"Best Wishes to the "Grand Premiere": the Beijing-Berlin-Brussels Truck Caravan!"

The globalisation and liberalisation of trade and tourism require the facilitation and security of road transport, which is the priority for the International Road Transport Union. Since more than 50 years, the IRU has contributed to the development and the proper implementation, with its membership in 70 countries, of the 55 UNECE Conventions and Agreements on the facilitation of road transport. In the last few years, with the support of its member associations, Governments and international organisations concerned, the IRU has been successfully extending its activity linking the regions of the UN Economic Social Commissions for Europe, Western and Central Asia and the Pacific.

The first IRU Euro-Asian Road Transport Conference was held in Irkutsk, Russia, in 2001. The second conference took place in 2003 in Tehran, Iran, and it was marked by new Asian associations joining the IRU. This development has been fully supported by the work realised by the latest IRU World Congress held in Yokohama, Japan, in 2004, while this will be pursued by the next one in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, in 2006.

In 2004, a Truck Caravan organized by the IRU member association ASMAP (Russian Association of International Carriers) under the leadership of the IRU opened the longest land route in the World from Lisbon on the Atlantic to Vladivostokon the Pacific Ocean. In September 2005, the 3rd IRU Euro-Asian Road Transport Conference is being held in Beijing to look for the best solution for facilitating road transport to connect in an optimal way the fastest developing country in Asia with other parts of the World.

The objective of this Caravan organised in co-operation with the China Road Transport Association (CRTA), the Union of International Road Transport Carriers of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the other road transport associations is to demonstrate that goods can be carried efficiently from China to the CIS countries and finally to the heart of Europe at one forth of the time it currently takes to carry the same goods by sea. It is also a perfect demonstration that road transport is not longer just a transport mode but a production tool contributing successfully to the prosperity of all nations in our globalised World.

Leaving on 27 September 2005 from Beijing, the location of the joint IRU - ministerial conference, to Europe, this Caravan will also highlight the importance and new capability of Chinese and European road transport systems in linking production and distribution centres anywhere across the entire Eurasian landmass.

However, freedom of transit for goods and road vehicles is a sine qua non condition for the proper development of international road transport and trade co-operation, because any penalty on the truck is an even bigger penalty on the economy as awhole.

I am sure that the Caravan will make known to all decision makers and the public at large the vital role and all the socio-economic advantages provided by modern road transport, which is always available everywhere for everybody for uniting people and improving the distribution of wealth.