The New Silk Road, the second Eurasian Continental Bridge linking China with Europe, is expected to bring closer economic relations between Asia and Europe, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) official said Wednesday.
Kerstin Leitner, chief representative of the UNDP Beijing Office, made this comment at an international symposium on East-West cooperation in relation to the new continental bridge which begins in Lianyungang, a port city in east China, and ends in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The UNDP official recalled the difficulties but also the increased economic development in the heyday of the Old Silk Road, and said that this symposium was aimed at exploring the great potential of the New Silk Road.
Many international organizations, governments, non-governmental organizations and private enterprises have showed great interest in the economic development of countries along the New Silk Road which already has become an investment hot spot.
(People's Daily 10/08/2001)
