Linking Lhasa to Xigaze cities in Tibet, the construction of a 254-km extension
line of the Qinghai-Tibet railway will start this year and is
expected to be completed in 2010, a Tibetan official said here
Thursday.
The railway, the first feeder line for the Qinghai-Tibet
Railway, will cost 11 billion yuan (US$1.42 billion), said Dotub, a
Tibetan legislator at a press conference held on the sidelines of
the country's parliamentary session in Beijing.
The First Survey and Design Institute of China Railway (FSDI),
based in Xi'an, capital of northwestern Shaanxi Province, has started the design work
for the railway line linking the top two largest cities in Tibet,
sources with the FSDI said.
Upon completion, the railway line, which will allow a designed
speed at least 120 km per hour, will be able to carry seven million
tons of cargo a year, and eventually ten million, according to the
FSDI sources.
Located in the southwest of Tibet Autonomous Region and
bordering Nepal, Bhutan and India, Xigaze is some 280 km to the
southwest of Lhasa, the hometown of the 11th Panchen Lama, and an
important base of agriculture and animal husbandry.
Tibet ended its history without railway in July 2006 with the
overall operation of the 1,956-km Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
Liu Zhijun, China's railway minister, said on Jan. 12 this year
that the railway had transported 1.18 million passengers and 1.16
million tons of cargo since then, bringing the region billions of
yuan in tourism revenue.
(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2007)