- OSJD member countries: Azerbaijani Republic, Republic of Belarus, Republic of Bulgaria, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Georgia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Kazakhstan, Chinese People’s Republic, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Latvia, Republic of Lithuania, Republic of Moldova, Mongolia, Republic of Poland, Russian Federation, Romania, Slovak Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Republic of Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Republic of Estonia;

- OSJD observer – Finnish Railways (VR);

- OSJD affiliated enterprises - PJSC “Research and Production Corporation United Wagon Company” (PJSC RPC UWC), JSC PLASKE;

- invited representatives of international organisations – UIC, CCTT;

- representatives and staff members of the OSJD Committee.

The meeting was opened and chaired by Mr. Tadeusz Szozda, OSJD Committee Chairman, who noted that the upcoming year of 2016 was to mark the 60^th anniversary of the Organisation’s foundation. The Organisation was established in June 1956 in Sofia (Bulgaria) at the first session of the Ministerial Conference. During its existence period OSJD has achieved great success in the development of international traffic between Asia and Europe. The operational length of railways of the OSJD member countries has increased from 227,000 kilometers at the time of foundation up to 281,215.8 km at present. In total about 6 billion tons of goods and 4 billion passengers are carried by the railways per year. Tadeusz Szozda stressed that this all was made possible thanks to the active work of railway personnel of all OSJD member countries which continue to carry out activities with the purpose of international rail transport development, its competitiveness and efficiency improvement. This significant date will be celebrated this year at the meeting XXXI of the Conference of Directors General in the Kyrgyz Republic on April 25-29 and at session XLIV of the OSJD Ministerial Conference in Azerbaijani Republic on June 7-10.

Having taken notice of the OSJD major role in the development of the international railway transport within 60 years of its existence, the meeting reviewed and discussed the materials developed by the OSJD working bodies and the OSJD Committee.

The draft Memorandum on Cooperation between OSJD and UIC in the years 2016-2020 and the draft Programme on Cooperation between OSJD and UIC in the years 2016-2020 were reviewed and agreed upon.

At the proposal of the OSJD Commission on Transport Law the meeting decided to set up an “Ad-Hoc Working Group of the OSJD Commission on Transport Law on SMGS electronic documents” composed of: Republic of Belarus, Republic of Kazakhstan, Republic of Lithuania, Mongolia, Republic of Poland, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Republic of Estonia.

The Meeting agreed and approved the Plans of Work of the OSJD working bodies for 2016 and the Work Schedule of OSJD meetings for 2016 to be published on the OSJD Website and in issue 1-2016 of OSJD Bulletin.

In May 2015 the Ukrainian party put forward an initiative to establish a transport corridor that would connect the ports of Odessa, Illichevsk (Ukraine) through Belarus to the port of Klaipeda (Lithuania). The Lithuanian and Belarusian parties supported the Ukrainian initiative. Given this, the Ukrainian party considered it appropriate to discuss possible amendments to be introduced at the meeting of the Commission on Transport Policy and Development Strategy into the diagram of the main railway corridors by extending Corridor No. 9.

The meeting took note of the information that the AWG of the OSJD Commission on Transport Law on SMPS revision had completed its mission, in particular, the work on drafting documents related to the preparation of the “Convention on Direct International Rail Traffic”, as well as on the development of changes and amendments into the SMPS Agreement, taking into account the agreed provisions of the draft “General Provisions for the Agreement on International Passenger Traffic”. In this regard, the work of this AWG was considered to be completed, and its work results to be reported at the next session of the OSJD Ministerial Conference in Azerbaijan in June 2016.

In view of the comprehensive changes and amendments into the SMGS Agreement which entered into force as of July 1, 2015 and in order to expand the scope of activities the meeting decided to rename the “AWG of the OSJD Commission on Transport Law for the development of Annex 14 to SMGS ‘Rules for Stowing and Securing of Goods in Wagons and Containers’” into the “AWG of OSJD Commission on Transport Law for the Development of Technical Specifications for Stowing and Securing of Goods”.

When reviewing the Work Plan of the OSJD Commission on Freight Traffic the importance and prospectivity of the of heavy-haul traffic development and the exchange of experiences on this issue were noted. The meeting proposed that the working staff of the OSJD Commission on Freight Traffic should organise a consultative meeting in the OSJD Committee in January 2016 with the representatives of the Russian Railways JSC, which is the leading duty holder, with the purpose of organising the OSJD seminar on the subject “Organisation of heavy-haul traffic”.

When reviewing the Work Plan of the OSJD Commission on Passenger Traffic the representative of MAV CJSC expressed his hope that in view of the requirements of the national legislation in Hungary, the meeting on the final coordination of timetable and passenger trains composition diagrams in international traffic of OSJD member railways of the I-st group of railways is to be planned for an earlier period.

At the end of the meeting the participants made proposals concerning further optimisation of the work of specialists and experts from OSJD member countries who depart to take part in the planned OSJD activities in 2016.