As part of Innotrans, the world’s largest trade fair focused on the rail transport industry, China Railway invited members from the UIC Asia-Pacific Region to Berlin, Germany for the 23rd UIC Asia-Pacific Management Committee (APMC) and the 37th Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly (APRA) on 24 September 2024.
Around 60 participants, including the ones online, from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Australia, China, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand, and Vietnam registered to attend the 37th Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly. The region welcomed three new members from Australia and Thailand and its membership currently stands at 55, and includes all active, associate, and affiliate members.
The 23rd APMC and the 37th APRA were chaired by Han Moon Hee, President & CEO of KORAIL and Chairman of the UIC Asia-Pacific Region, who extended a warm welcome to all of the participants. The meetings focused on appointing the Chairmanship of the region and the representatives of the region at the UIC ExBoard and the UIC Asia-Pacific Management Committee, as well as discussing the activities and budget.
The UIC Asia-Pacific Region nomination for 2025-2026: Han Moon Hee, President & CEO of KORAIL, for a second mandate, to the position of UIC Asia-Pacific Chairman. The nomination of the UIC Asia-Pacific Vice-Chair will be decided in November 2024 at the 37th APRA Extraordinary meeting due to late candidacy.
Additionally, the Assembly also approved the CR (China), IR (India), JR East (Japan), KORAIL (Korea) and KTZ (Kazakhstan) being selected for positions on the UIC Executive Board and the Asia-Pacific Management Committee for the next two years.
Warwick Talbot, UIC APRA Vice-Chair and Deputy Executive Director of Sydney Trains, expressed his honour to have been the Vice-Chairman of the region and thanked the APRA Chairman, Han Moon Hee and all the members for their support during his mandate. He expressed the wish that the Asia-Pacific region would continue to develop its activities.
Han Moon Hee provided a comprehensive overview of the year’s activities, projects, and achievements as well as his strategic vision for the development of the Asia-Pacific region. The focus was on safety, railway decarbonisation, standardisation, innovation and expansion of the region with new potential members and inter-regional activities.
In his keynote address, Dr Beroud underscored the crucial role of interregional cooperation in driving forward the global railway industry. He emphasised:
“The APRA region is one of the most important UIC regions... due to the incredible dynamics of progress and development of the railway sector... You are a reservoir of unique knowledge and know-how in many aspects of railway competence sphere, which we all want to benefit from, as part of our global railway family.”
Then, François Davenne, UIC Director General, highlighted the solid perception of UIC’s added value with a strong stream of accession and stable member satisfaction. He underlined the improvement of UIC transparency concerning finance and projects and announced that the 2024 budget would be balanced and the projects’ trajectory would be exceeded. He also outlined the importance of regional empowerment.
APRA’s projects and activities were presented by Philippe Lorand, Coordinator of the UIC Asia-Pacific Region, who detailed the status of ongoing projects, including four studies and two regional training sessions. He also announced the extension of the date for the selection of projects 2025 which will be decided at the 37th APRA Extraordinary meeting in November 2024.
To conclude, the dates and venues for the next Asia-Pacific region’s international conferences were given by the APRA Chair.
