The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) region has historically been an important route for global trade ? connecting Asia to Europe (and vice versa) and beyond through the ancient Silk Road before the evolution of maritime trade and commerce in the 1500s. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) initiated the subregion development program, CAREC, in 2006 with the aim of reviving the region’s commerce and trade significance by investing in six CAREC corridors. In 2013, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) launched the Belt and Road Initiative to further accelerate efforts on this front. In general, over the past 2 decades a lot of investment has been made in reviving the ancient Silk Road.
Since 2010, ADB has been putting significant effort into upgrading and building CAREC corridors, which run through the whole region. These corridors enhance inter- and intraregional connectivity and consequently promote regional economic cooperation and cross-border trade. While further efforts and resources need to be optimized for upgrading and building the corridors, special attention must be paid to looking after these corridors in terms of sustainable asset management.
We used the findings to develop a range of policies that could be used to create a more sustainable and resilient road network for the region ? thereby enabling the benefits envisioned from the investments in the corridors to be realized.