Manila - Security officials and experts from Asia and the European Union gathered Monday in the Philippine capital for a two-day meeting to assess terrorism threats, especially in the transport sector.

The 7th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Conference on Counter-Terrorism focuses on building state capacity to prevent and combat terrorist attacks on transportation infrastructure and systems.

"The transport sector, especially mass transit, has been especially susceptible to terrorist attacks," the organizers said in a statement.

Aside from officials of member states and territories of ASEM, delegates from the UN's Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, the South-East Asia Regional Centre for Counter-Terrorism and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were expected to attend the meeting.

Meeting chairman Philippine Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor said the event provided an opportunity among security officials to share intelligence information.

"The threat of terrorism has not diminished through the years," he said in an interview before the conference started. "It's very important that we all have the same standards of fighting terrorism, the same assessment all the time." (dpa)