India on Tuesday signed a historic international agreement for completing a 140,000 km-long Asian Highway Network which will significantly promote regional integration and cooperation.
Apart from India, countries like Pakistan, China, Iran, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam signed the inter-governmental agreement at the ministerial segment of the 60th session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, which is currently meeting in Shanghai.
The highway will connect capitals, major ports, commercial centres and tourist sites of Asian nations.
After its completion by 2010, vehicles from Tokyo can travel directly to Istanbul. Even island countries like Japan, Philippines and Sri Lanka, will be linked through ferries to mainland countries.
"The signing of agreement on Asian highways is a landmark event," Commerce Secretary Dipak Chatterjee, who is leading the Indian delegation to the ESCAP session, said.
The highway will further facilitate border-crossing for people, vehicles and goods, and also impart crucial benefits to landlocked countries.
The Bangkok-based UNESCAP has been negotiating routes and road specifications for the network since 1992.
The highway network is a significant step in promoting regional integration and cooperation, officials said.
"It means that many landlocked countries like Mongolia and Kazakhstan can have access to the sea by joining the Asian Highway Network and more sub-regions can be connected together," Barry Cable, chief of the transport and tourism division of the ESCAP, said.
Chinese Minister of Communications Zhang Chunxian said a crucial part of the network will pass through his country. China has a total of 26,000-km highways within the network, accounting for 19 per cent of the network's total length.
Besides the existing 11,000 km of highway, China will build another 15,000 km of new road for the network, which will be completed by 2010, he said.
According to the ESCAP, signing the agreement on the network does not mean a real "free" cross-border transport along the proposed routes.
A series of follow-up work has to be done after the member countries signed the agreement, Cable said, adding that efforts are still needed on bilateral or multilateral talks on border-crossing issues during trade and transport.
The plans for the Asian Highway Network was initiated in 1959 and, in 2003, representatives of 32 ESCAP member countries adopted an inter-governmental agreement on the network in Bangkok, Thailand.
