UNITED NATIONS: Asian governments plan to finalize an agreement next week to complete a massive international highway network that will rival the ancient Silk Route, UN officials said on Tuesday. The 140,000-km road system links 32 Asian nations to each other and to Europe

More than 20 nations are expected to formally back the project at a ceremony opening the agreement to signature in Shanghai, China, next Monday, although the accord will not take effect until 90 days after it is ratified by at least eight nations, UN officials said.

The project's main corridor will link Tokyo, via ferry, to the Koreas and then across the continent to Istanbul, Turkey. A spur will continue on through St. Petersburg to Russia's border with Finland.

UN officials, at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York, compared the project to its legendary predecessor, the ancient Silk Route and predicted it would give a major economic boost to the entire region, and particularly its landlocked countries.

The network is already about 83 per cent completed, but will require some new construction as well as improvements along the remaining 17 per cent of its length, they said. The 62-nation UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific has been campaigning for a pan-Asian highway system since 1959 but the idea took shape only in the past three years. Funding will come from participating nations as well as financial institutions. -Reuters