China is planning a 'New Silk Road' at a cost of $660 million that will run through Central Asia and continue into Europe, crossing the Pamir Plateau, to facilitate improved transport and trade.
The road connecting Kashgar in Xinjiang province with Erkeshtam, a border point of central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan will complement a planned 'Silk Track" railway that will also boost connections with Europe and the countries in between, officials and experts have confirmed, official China Daily reported.
Officials of the Xinjiang highway administration said construction will soon start on a 213-km expressway which was expected to be ready by September 2013.
The project, which is likely to cost 4.3 billion yuan ($660 million), is being described as the first expressway to cross the Pamirs Plateau and offers access to Central Asia.
Ju Chengzhi, director of the international affairs department at the Ministry of Transport, told China Daily the soon-to-be-built Kashgar-Erkeshtam expressway is a section of the proposed new link between Asia and Europe.
He said the route within China will start in Lianyungang, in East China's Jiangsu province, and travel through Xi'an, in Northwest China's Shaanxi province, before reaching the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
The proposed route will continue through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey, before heading into Europe, he added.
"The route will link China with major countries in Central Asia, Western Asia and Europe. It will pass these countries' administrative centers, major cities and resource-producing