In April, 2002, India, Myanmar and Thailand signed an agreement to develop a road network among themselves and a number of high level discussions followed to accelerate the work, they pointed out.

Under the agreement, India offered financial help to Yangon for developing its road and establishing a road link between its eastern provinces and Myanmar port city Akyab.

Besides, India would develop its road from Assam to Kolkata and New Delhi for giving the network a final shape.

"Now these countries may accelerate the development of the network and declare it as part of the Asian Highway following the refusal of Bangladesh," said Dr M Rahmatullah, former director of The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific (ESCAP), the sponsor of Asian Highway.

A road already exists in that direction and the only requirement is to upgrade it according to the standard of Asian Highway, he pointed out.

The refusal to join such a big road network may cause a great damage to the interest of Bangladesh, Rahmatullah said, adding that if Dhaka had agreed to join, the other countries would have easily agreed on the roads through Bangladesh as part of Asian Highway because it would be much shorter.

As Bangladesh declined to join, it lost the chance to exploit financial benefits from the road network, he said. The deadline for joining the network was December 31, 2005.

Even if Bangladesh joins the network in future, it will lose the voting power in the decision making body, he said.

According to the convention of the network, a country joining the road network later will have to comply with the decisions taken earlier.

The other states concerned may not accept Bangladesh's amendment proposal later, as they would have spent a lot of money by the time, he said.

The experts also feared that Bangladesh economy would be affected, as the foreign investors will hesitate to invest in the country due to lack of suitable connections with its neighbours.

Escap took the initiative for developing the Asian Highway that aims at developing road communication for easy transportation of goods and people.

Twenty-seven of the 32 countries already signed the agreement but Bangladesh declined to join the network fearing that it would ultimately turn into a transit to its neighbour India.