UN exhorts India to rebuild Silk Route

The United Nations (UN) in a recent development has called upon India to focus on improving connectivity along the Silk Route in order to establish itself as a hub for Asia-Europe trade, a senior executive of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) said recently, adding that South Asia can again become a hub of economic activities through improved connectivity, as it was in the ancient times. Reviving the Asian trade route would put South Asia at the centre of Europe and East Asia and the eastern side of the Silk Road is developing fast with India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway along with the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal Motor Vehicles Agreement. The time has come for India to work on the western side of the Silk Rout, director of UNESCAP‘s South and South-West Asia Office, Nagesh Kumar said. In fact, there is a very interesting proposal of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) linking South Asia and Central Asia through port of Bandar Abas or Chhabbar port in Iran. In addition, the UNESCAP has also proposed extension of the Istanbul-Tehran-Islamabad Container Train Corridor to Delhi-Kolkata-Dhaka and Yangon, using existing operational interconnections along the Trans-Asian Railway Routes, he insisted.