The northwestern Chinese city of Lanzhou plans to build a "New Silk Road" exhibition park to show the development of cities along the 11,870-km route stretching from the Chinese coast to Rotterdam in the west.

The 80-hectare exhibition park will include an exhibition hall of cities along the route, a concert hall of folk music, a gallery of culture and history, among others, according to the Development and Reform Commission of Lanzhou.

Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province, is a traffic hub of the New Silk Road, or more formally known as the New Eurasian Continental Bridge. It was also one of the key cities on the 2,000-year-old Silk Road. The New Eurasian Continental Bridge, the cheapest and fastest Asia-Europe land rail route, starts from China's coastal city of Lianyungang, and goes westward to its terminal at the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands to the west.

Statistics from the UNDP show that over 4,000 km of the Asia-Europe land route lies within China, extending across ten provincial areas including Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanxi, Anhui, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang.

Lanzhou is hosting the 2007 New Eurasian Continental Bridge Conference on Regional Economic Cooperation from June 29 to July 4, which aims to explore ways of expanding cooperation among countries and cities along the Bridge.

The plan of New Silk Road Exhibition Park will be discussed by mayors from cities along the route at the conference. In recent years, the idea of improving economy along the New Eurasian Continental Bridge and reviving the golden history of the Silk Road has gained popularity.

(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2007)