A trade market on the Sino-Indian border is under construction and scheduled to open in June, following a plan made in 2004 that the two countries would set up their first direct trade link since 1962.

The 6,400-sq-m market, named Dongqinggang, is located by the mountain road 16 km from the 4,545-m high Nathu La Pass, where Yatung County of Tibet Autonomous Region and India's Sikkim state meet.

According to the plan, the market will be open twice a week for four hours a day after its construction is completed.

"Construction is going on at a brisk pace and 60 percent of it has been completed. Everything should be finished before the deadline," said Basang Cering, an official of Yatung County, who is also the chief director at the construction site.

Construction of roads leading to Nathu La Pass is also under way, but is often clogged by heavy snows. A total of 1,550 workers are now working on the site to try to finish it in time.

Nathu La Pass, which used to be a hot spot for bilateral trade between China and India, takes over 80 percent of their total border trading volume at the beginning of the 20th century. But trading over the pass was suspended in 1962.

Four decades later, China and India signed a memorandum in 2004 to resume trading at the Nathu La Pass and, in the ensuing year, China's State Council approved the construction of a trade market near the pass.

(Xinhua News Agency April 6, 2006)