August 23, The Iran Project - An Iranian financial expert says the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) would help in promoting Iran's tourism sector, as it can facilitate tourists’ inflow to the country.

Referring to the new opportunities that would be created by the corridor, Mehrdad Seyed Asgari, a Norway-based Iranian commentator stated that Iran has launched several projects to build new hotels in order to improve the country’s tourism infrastructure.

Iran has taken the approach to attract tourists based on reinforcing infrastructures and paying attention to different aspects of tourism industry.

The project envisages construction of transport and infrastructure facilities along the shipping route from South-East Asia to Northern Europe through India, Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia. The North-South Transport Corridor project aims to reduce the costs and the time of ship, rail and road transport deliveries between the countries located along the route.

Asgari also added that all sides are working hard to fully launch the corridor, stressing its key role for the development of the region.

Earlier, Javid Gurbanov, Azerbaijan Railways head, noted that "the North-South project will bring dividends to Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran.” Iran and Azerbaijan are parties to the INSTC project based on the 2002 agreement, which also involved Russia and India as well as some Central Asian and European countries.