TEHRAN UIC RAME: The 29th UIC Regional Assembly for the Middle East (UIC RAME) was held as hybrid on 11 May 2022. Participating members included UIC managers, UIC coordinator for the Middle East, TCDD and TCDD Taşımacılık A.Ş. (Turkey), RAI (Iran), SAR (Saudi Arabia), IRR (Iraq), ARA (Afghanistan), ARC and JHR (Jordan), MoEI (United Arab Emirates), and the representatives of TGA (Saudi Arabia).
The meeting was opened by Mr. Francois Davenne, UIC Director General. His introduction was followed by words of welcome by Mr. Zahi Khalil, Director General of Jordan Hejaz Railways (JHR). After that, Mr. Metin Akbaş, Chairman of the Board, Director General of TCDD and Chairman of RAME, Mr. Miad Salehi, Iranian Vice-Minister for Roads and Urban Development and Chairman of the Board and President of RAI, and Mr. Bashar Khaled Al Malik, CEO of SAR, made a welcoming statement to the members of the Assembly. All of them acknowledged how UIC’s RAME members had successfully continued their work and had remained united in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. Webinars had proven to be an effective way of working and this format will remain useful in the months to come.
Then, the minutes of the 28th RAME meeting, on November 24, 2021, which were formerly sent to RAME members, was approved by all RAME members. After that, a full report on the 1st Middle East Management Committee (MEMC) on March 7, 2022, was introduced by Mr. Marc Guigon, UIC Coordinator for the Middle East. Then, Mr. Marc Guigon informed the participants of the results of the vote that Mr. Mohammed Wasel Al Hourani, UAE was nominated as the second officio member representative in the MEMC.
Then, the process of preparing UIC Middle East Rail Vision 2050, through a contract with the company IEC International, the results of the first UIC Middle East Railway Tuesday, and the report of UIC trainings by MERTCe, were introduced.
The meeting was provided by a report on financial issues and the budget planning 2022-2023-2024. Then, a full report on the activities of the UIC Regional Office in the first half of 2022 was presented by Mr. Fazli, Deputy Director General of International Affairs Bureau of RAI. Activities included performing the required coordination for RAME members to participate in the following regional webinars under guidance and instruction of the coordinator for the Middle-East Region:

• 7th Webinar on “Freight Resilience, Railway Logistics & the New Challengers for its
  Repositioning", 24.2.2022.
• “First ever MENA Climate Week happening”, Dubai, 28-31.3.2022,
• 1st meeting of the Middle East Management Committee (MEMC), 7.3.2022, zoom webmeeting,

Then, he continued by mentioning the following activities:

• Update of the UIC RAME Communications Directory 2022,
• Inserting all presentations, related documents, and the minutes of the last RAME meeting (24.11.2021), 1st MEMC, etc., into the UIC extranet,
• Update of UIC Middle-East website (in English, Persian, and Arabic).

An update on the draft Action Plan 2022-2023 and a practical Road Map for UIC RAME members was provided by Mr. Marc Guigon, UIC Coordinator for the Middle East, as the following:

• Projects of general interest, members’ needs, through the related meetings and the questionnaires, in technical field and the projects titles,
• Conferences, Webinars, Workshops on specific subjects: safety, maintenance, operation…
• Cooperation with other UIC regions (Africa and Asia-Pacific)
• Participation of RAME in the World Congress on High-Speed Rail in Marrakech (Morocco) on 7-10 March 2023
• RAME Website to be transferred in the UIC website with 4 languages (English, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish)
  Then, several RAME members, including TCDD, RAI, SAR, and ISR provided a report on the projects and achievements of UIC RAME members.
  In the end, it was decided to hold the 30th RAME meeting on November 22, 2022 in United Arab Emirates at the kind invitation of MOEI.