25 October 2004	Monday	10 Ramazan 1425

BEIJING, Oct 24: High-ranking officials from Pakistan and other regional countries will meet in China on Tuesday to adopt a joint strategy for rehabilitating the historic Silk Road.

The meeting, co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Communications and the International Road Federation (IRF) is scheduled to take place in Xi'an, the capital of China's Shaanxi province from Oct 26 to 28.

Pakistan will be represented at the meeting by Minister of State for Communication Shahid Jamil Qureshi. He is scheduled to arrive here on Monday.

A senior official of the Chinese Ministry of Communication told APP that the conference would be highly significant for the regional countries to promote their trade links and people-to-people contacts through the Silk Road.

A separate ministerial session would be held, during which the participating ministers would express their views on "how a rehabilitated Silk Road will contribute to the economic and social development of each country".

Based on their in-depth discussion, a joint ministerial statement would be released after the session.

Sources said that a new Silk Road has been proposed, extending westwards via Central Asian and European states to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, forming a new Asian-European trans-continental bridge.

The ancient Silk Road, a route linking the Asian and European continents as of some 2,000 years ago, used to be the world's oldest and most historically important trade route that wound more than 7,000 kilometres.

However, the existing road connecting Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kirghistan and China could not meet the growing demands of transportation. As a result, the International Road Federation initiated the Silk Road Rehabilitation project.

China, which joined the federation in 2002, has been active in revitalizing the Silk Road and promoting border trade since it coincides with the country's recent 'western development strategy'.

Meanwhile, Feng Zhenglin, China's vice communication minister in a statement said that China would build a cross-country road linking Shanghai with Horgos, a land-port of Kazakhstan.

It is a part of an overall plan to construct another Silk Road. It will include the world's longest tunnel with a length of 18 km. The completion of the project will gear up trade and tourism among the Central Asian states and the neighbouring countries.

China is also engaged in trans-border road construction along the ancient Silk Road. A 959-km road is designed to start from China's Kashi and extend westward to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, via Kyrgyzstan.

"It is also part of the Asian road network of the United Nations. We have made transportation cooperation the priority on the agenda," the minister said.-APP