Railway helps lift Tibet's foreign trade

BEIJING: Tibet foreign trade went up by a whopping 75 per cent to reach $322 million in the first 10 months since the opening of the strategic Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the first to link the remote Himalayan region with the rest of China.

The figure breaks down into $100 million of imports and $222 million of exports during the period between July 1 last year and April 30 this year, up 170 per cent and 51 per cent respectively, latest customs statistics show.

The growth in foreign trade is largely due to the opening of the 1,956-km-long Qinghai-Tibet Railway on July 1 last year, between Xining, capital of north-western Qinghai Province and Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest China.

"The railway helped reduce high transportation costs, boosting the flow of commodities between China and south Asian nations and regions," a spokesman with Lhasa Customs said.

About 960 kilometres of the Qinghai-Tibet railway is located 4,000 metres above sea level and the highest point is 5,072 metres, at least 200 metres higher than the Peruvian railway in the Andes, the former world's highest track.

The Qinghai-Tibet railway has also boosted tourism revenues.

However, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama and other critics say the railway line to Tibet would destroy Tibet's fragile ecology and bring in more Chinese settlers to the region.

China has announced that it has found several major mineral deposits along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway route.