Dry ports and intermodal transport.

 

Dry ports, like all intermodal facilities, help to meet supply chain requirements by grouping highway and railway access together with theprocessing of customs formalities, warehousing, consolidation and distribution, manufacturing and other economic activities along transport corridors. The Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports provides for the coordinated development of the regional transport and logistics system and serves to complement the Intergovernmental Agreements on the Asian Highway Network and on the Trans-Asian Railway Network, with a view to facilitating modal integration at the infrastructure planning stage in support of a common regional multimodal network. 

Despite their continuing interest in dry ports and other intermodal transport facilities, member States continue to experience challenges and issues in the development and operation thereof owing to infrastructural insufficiencies, institutional matters, lack of deployment of new technologies and other factors. These challenges demonstrate the continued need for capacitybuilding and technical assistance in promoting dry port development. Further efforts are also needed to obtain greater benefits from the dynamism of the dry port development in the region.