Minister of Transport and Communications Mile Janakieski presented Friday ongoing infrastructural and transportation projects in Macedonia at an international conference "Silk Roads: Inspirations and Opportunities" taking place in Istanbul.

He welcomed the initiative on forming the new Silk Road as a set of transportation corridors aiming at uniting Euro-Asian infrastructure and facilitating approach and transportation urging one leg to be constructed in Macedonia.

"Macedonia deeply appreciates the favourable regional connection and solutions to a solid regional network. Being a crossroad on the Balkans, I urge one leg of the new Silk Road to be constructed in Macedonia relying on the new and improved infrastructure. I call on all the countries, whose representatives are here today, especially those from the region of South-eastern Europe, to cooperate at every level by implementing projects that are beneficial for our citizens and that enable better economic development and better connectivity," Janakieski said addressing the event.

Macedonia, added Janakieski, with its geographic location has always been a strategic transport point on the Balkans being at the very crossroads of many routes leading from Europe to Asia and the Middle East. At the moment, we are committed to and focused on constructing new highways, new railroad tracks and rehabilitating old ones alongside the pan-European corridors passing through our country," he stated noting that those projects were realized in cooperation with the biggest international financial institutions, including the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the Exim Bank of China.

Officials from Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Croatia, Azerbaijan, China, Spain and Pakistan as well as of various international scientific, political and economic institutions are expected to deliver addresses at the international conference "Silk Roads: Inspirations and Opportunities".

The Silk Road is a series of trade and cultural transmission routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent connecting the West and East by linking traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads, and urban dwellers from China and India to the Mediterranean Sea during various periods of time.

(Source: MIA)