The 20th UIC Asia Pacific Regional Assembly successfully took place on 17 November 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and was kindly hosted by SPAD (Suruhanjaya Pengangkutan Awam Darat).

The assembly was welcomed by His Excellency Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr Syed Hamid bin Syed Jaafar Albar, Chairman, Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) and chaired by Mr Seino Satoshi, Chairman of East Japan Railway Company. This statutory meeting dealt with the numerous regional and multiregional actions undertaken in 2015. This edition was also the occasion for the work of UIC Headquarters to be promoted by Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director General, as well as by the different representative offices in Kuala Lumpur, Moscow and Melbourne. In 2015, four important new members joined UIC from the Asia-Pacific region (ETRI from Korea, MIIT from Russia, TFNSW-ASA from Australia and DJKA-Ministry of Transportation from Indonesia) and now the region has 39 members in total.

Coordinated by Vincent Vu, Director of Institutional Relations and Coordinator of UIC Asia-Pacific, one of the achievements of the Kuala Lumpur Assembly was the adoption of the “Asia-Pacific Railways Vision 2050” which will guide the region and set out its vision.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly also validated the activities and budget for 2016, including seven new regional projects and suggested collaborating with Europe in four other projects. So 2016 will also be a very busy year for the region with the continuation of the Strategic Action Plan actions such as Workshop on Safety and Quality Standard of HSR Passenger Service, Workshop on Signalling, Training on High Speed Systems, and many other activities and projects.

The next UIC Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly is scheduled to be held in Beijing, China, on 10 May 2016.