With Monday's signing of an intergovernmental agreement on the Asian Highway Network, 23 countries have pledged to continue modifying their domestic roadways to accommodate international trade and exchanges.
The agreement and its three annexes map out a road transportation network in Asia, setting down basic technical standards for the roads and their route signs.
"What we are trying to do through the Asian Highway Network is to create the same types of opportunities that exist in the coastal areas for the wide hinterland countries, particularly to provide opportunities for landlocked countries and their neighbors to be able to trade more effectively," said Barry Cable, chief of the Transport and Tourism Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
"Not only will it provide opportunities for the landlocked Central Asian countries to share in the prosperity of the rest of the region, it will also create opportunities for the highway to pass through Central Asian countries to reach the European market," Cable said in an interview with China Daily.
He added the road network will also create opportunities for people to travel more easily, enhancing their understanding of foreign culture and society and contributing to peaceful development.
However, though the highway link is largely a question of infrastructure construction, countries still need to enter into bilateral or multilateral pacts to settle such details as permission for entry, quotas and the permitted distance of transportation by foreign vehicles.
Initiated in 1959 by the then Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, the predecessor of UNESCAP, the Asian Highway project now extends to 32 countries with a total length of 140,000 kilometers.
The open-ended network, still inviting more countries and highways to join, is meant to link capital cities, major harbors, tourist attractions, industrial and commercial centers across Asia.
Yesterday's agreement is significant in that it establishes minimum standards for the development of highways, which will be conducive to the overall improvement of highway conditions in Asia.
According to the agreement, if one country wants to change the linkage, it needs to reach a bilateral agreement with the other country involved and then send a proposal to a working group of the Asian Highway Network established by the agreement.
Some analysts also regard the signing of the agreement, which clarifies the rights of duties of the signatory countries in the form of a legal document, as a renewal of a pledge by member countries to further facilitate communications in the region through road transportation.
"Now countries have a consensus among them that the construction of the Asian Highway Network is for the facilitation of economic cooperation, trade and tourism, and in the long run, the formation of a free-trade zone," said Ju Chengzhi, director-general of the Department of International Cooperation under China's Ministry of Communications.
Western region to be linked
With 26,000 kilometers of China's highways already connected with or planned to link to the Asian Highway Network, this nation accounts for nearly one-fifth of the network's entire length.
According to Ju, China has already completed the construction of 11,000 kilometers of roads in the network, and the rest 15,000 kilometers will be ready by 2010.
These roads connect 130 cities in China and lead to 65 famous tourist attractions, covering a total population of nearly 300 million.
Most of those sections go through China's western regions, which are economically depressed compared to the country's prosperous coastal provinces.
The network will help enhance economic and technical cooperation between these regions and neighboring countries as well as promoting trade, said Ju.
In addition, the network will encourage trade between China's border regions and their foreign neighbors while attracting more foreign goods from Asia's landlocked countries to use China's harbors, said Ju, who also painted a rosy picture for the development of tourism in the country's northwestern and southwestern regions thanks to the network.
China has already signed 12 bilateral and multilateral road transportation agreements with 10 countries in the region.
Ju told China Daily there is a growing demand for cross-border road transportation, particularly in China's northeastern, northwestern and southwestern regions.
China is currently working with Viet Nam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand for an agreement to facilitate road transportation in the greater Mekong River region and another multilateral road transportation pact with the other five members of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, all in Central Asia.
