Three-pronged bid to clean up Middle East
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THE EEC and the West German government are trying to initiate a shipping-type trading convention to regularise road transport travelling from Europe to the Middle East.
This was revealed by the lelegate from the German long-distance haulage federa:ion (BDF) at a conference in Eastbourne last week. Mr Ilarl-Heinz Lurch said at aresent it was simply not iossible to operate competi ively to the Middle East; Ilierman haulage quotations were being undercut by the Rumanians. The Eastern European bloc nations were not interested in normal competition, he said, but were simply interested in getting currency.
Earlier, Sir Daniel Pettit, NFC chairman, had asked the director-general of the International Road Transport Union (IRU) whether the IRU had discussed with the nations concerned the need for proper transport conventions for overland traffic to the Middle East; he was concerned about the situation. The secretary-general, Mr Pieter Groenendijk, said the IRU was in the process of extending its guarantee system (TIR) to other Middle Eastern countries, but it would take time for these countries to establish proper infrastructures.
IRU had, he revealed, tried to " pressurise " governments to understand that transport had to develop under proper concRtions. The IRU was very active on this front and hoped that things would soon he brought under proper control.