Wednesday, May 18 2005 18:12 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beijing: China and India are actively working on plans to reopen the Stilwell Road through Myanmar which would reduce the distance between the two nations from 6,000 km to just 1,300 km, the State media reported today (May 18, 2005).

The Stilwell Road, a strategic supply route between Assam and China's Yunnan province via Myanmar built in the World War II by Chinese and American troops, will soon reopen.

Yunnan Province, which benefits greatly from trade with India, has played a vanguard role in the rebuilding of the Stilwell Road.

An Indian survey team arrived in Tengchong in Yunnan Province for a field investigation on the entire length of the road to be commenced this month, the official Xinhua news agency reported from the provincial capital, Kunming.

Yunnan and Assam have agreed to begin a joint exploration on the Stilwell Road at the end of this year, it quoted a senior official with the Yunnan Provincial Council for Promoting Trade with Foreign Countries as saying.

According to the latest field investigation, the section from Ledo in India to Kunming in China's Yunnan Province on the Stilwell Road is only 1,300 km. The current trading route to ship most of India's export to China, by contrast, is as long as 6,000 km, going around the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean before reaching China's eastern coast.

If the Stilwell Road is re-opened, it will be the most convenient land route between China and India and turn Southeast Asia into a key-trading hub.