The SPECA 2023 Economic Forum on the theme "Transforming the SPECA region into a centre of connectivity with global reach" took place in Baku, Azernews reports.

The forum builds on the active position of Azerbaijan and other SPECA participating states to develop SPECA as a service-oriented, flexible, and strategic platform for coordinating issues, facilitating policy dialogue and cooperation, consolidating positions, finding solutions to common challenges, developing strategies and work plans for their implementation.

This forum reflects the key theme of Azerbaijan's chairmanship of SPECA in 2023.

It also builds on the achievements of recent years in positioning the SPECA region as a centre of connectivity in the geographical centre of the Eurasian continent, in particular the outcomes of the 2019 SPECA Economic Forum on "Connectivity: trade and transport facilitation and sustainable development in the SPECA subregion".

Note that the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA) was established on March 26, 1998.

At present, the SPECA member states are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

SPECA provides a platform for sub-regional cooperation to realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that can best be achieved through regional cooperation. Azerbaijan will chair SPECA in 2023.

SPECA Days are being held in Baku from November 20 to 24, 2023.