The first UIC Middle East meeting was held on 6 September with UIC Passenger Director Marc Guigon as coordinator of the Regional Assembly of Middle East (RAME) region.
The meeting began with a message of welcome from François Davenne, Director General of UIC. The RAME meeting was conducted by Marc Guigon and was attended by the chair of the region, Turkish Railways (TCDD), the UIC Middle East Regional Office based in Tehran, and Sandra Géhénot, Director of the UIC Freight Department.
As the new coordinator for the region, Mr Guigon shared his message and presented his objectives during the meeting:
“As you know, this region is not unknown to me. With you, colleagues from TCDD, we organised the World Congress on High-Speed Rail in 2018 in Ankara, and with RAI, we organised the nextstation conference in 2019 in Tehran. With a lot of preparatory meetings, I got to know each of you and I am sure that we will have great cooperation.
My aim is to support the UIC members, coordinate actions to develop regional cooperation, enhance the promotion of railways in the region, exchange best practices with other members from other regions, and organise workshops, conferences and congresses in the interest of the region’s members.
There are a lot of subjects of interest such as passenger (high-speed rail, tourism, commuter and regional, ticketing, etc.), freight with the corridors for international logistics and trade, rail system, and fundamental values such as safety, security, crisis management, asset management, sustainability, digitalisation, standardisation, expertise, training, maintenance, etc.
I hope these actions will be helpful and will serve all regional members to help develop their activities. For that, we need the participation of all the regional members.
We need to increase the number of members in the region; we need to launch regional projects and participate in global projects.
I would also like the RAME region to cooperate with other regions, mainly Africa and Asia-Pacific, and to enhance cooperation with international and regional institutions.
I know we will have the strong support of our Director General, Mr Davenne, and our Chairman, Mr Maminski.
Thank you to TCDD and Mr Uygun for chairing the region.
Thank you to RAI and Mr Rasouli for their vice chairmanship and also for the work of the UIC Middle East Regional Office […]”.
