International Asian Highway

The Asian Highway, a project initiated in 1958 by ECAFE, aims at modernizing and linking up existing roads into a 34,000 miles network of highways that would span Asia from Turkey and Iraq to the Republic of Viet-Nam, Singapore and Indonesia. The highway network will service an area of some 2,500,000 square miles with a population of over six hundred million. Priority Route A-1 (about 6,500 miles) runs from Saigon through eight countries: the Republic of Viet-Nam, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, India, East and West Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, to the Turkish border, where connections can be made to the highway systems of the Middle East and Europe. Priority Route A-2 (about 7,600 miles) runs from the Iraqi border to Singapore, through Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand and Malaysia, continuing into Indonesia where, after a ferry crossing from Singapore to Djakarta, it will run the whole length of the island to Java. Member governments have already invested large sums in an effort to improve the standards of the roads within their borders, and some have undertaken to eliminate the missing links between them and their neighbours. The highest tunnel in the world is being built by the Afghan Government some 62 miles to the north of Kabul. The Salang tunnel which will cut through the heart of the Hindu Kush mountain range at a height of 10,000 feet, will be 8,250 feet long and will shorten the existing road by 120 miles. Some sections of the major roads in Afghanistan are being built under bilateral aid programmes. [c. April 1964]