TEHRAN – The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) opened a two-day conference in Tehran on Sunday, aiming to identify potential opportunities and challenges for strengthening subregional connectivity.

The Policy Dialogue on Strengthening Transport Connectivity in Southern Asia seeks to enhance connectivity and explore ways to apply a set of transport facilitation tools developed by ESCAP to deepen transport connectivity.
The Policy Dialogue will also aim to identify actionable measures required to further strengthen transport connectivity, including through implementation of extended corridors along the Trans-Asian Railway and Asian Highway routes, in line with the master plan approach.
As measured by the levels of intraregional trade, investment, transport connectivity and people-to-people contacts, South Asia remains one of the least integrated subregions in Asia. One of the main reasons behind this lack of integration is the high trade costs due to poor transport connectivity within the subregion.