Geneva (AsiaNews Agencies) - The transportation ministers of 19 countries of Europe and Asia met in Geneva on February 19 and agreed on 43 billion dollars in projects to restore the ancient Silk Road and other roads, and to link the two continents from the Mediterranean Sea to the far east. The new system will incorporate roads, railways, and waterways, to foster rapid growth in trade.
Today transportation, especially commercial transportation, is blocked by dilapidated roads, insufficient railways, complicated border controls, and congested ports. Now 19 countries - including China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and countries of central Asia - have pledged to improve land routes with 230 projects to be completed by 2014. Each country will have to refurbish the transportation system in its own territory.
Barry Cable, an official of the United Nations, which is supporting the project, comments that it is "a revitalisation, a rebirth of the Silk Road system, which will provide an opportunity not only for the land-locked countries of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, but for the more distant areas away from the sea to benefit from much better transport connections". Many of these countries are now at the edges of global commerce. The transportation network will also foster tourism, which continues to grow: for example, there were more than 420,000 visitors to Bukhara in Uzbekistan in 2006.
The ancient Silk Road connected the Roman empire with the Chinese empire 2,000 years ago, permitting commercial trade between faraway lands, and bringing prosperity to the countries along the road.
Rebuilding the road has been discussed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990's. But it is the first time that concrete projects have been discussed. The World Bank will finance the work.