China's Qinghai-Tibet Railway will help promote relations
including trade between China and South Asia and tourism in the
region, said Nepali experts.
China's Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is the dreamland for the
entire tourists in the world and the tourist flow to Tibet would be
doubled within two or three years, Rajeswor Acharya former Nepalese
ambassador to China, told Xinhua in a recent interview while
commenting on the operation of Qinghai-Tibet Railway service.
China's trade with South Asian countries including Nepal has
added new opportunities, as the Chinese products transported via
railway will be cheaper, faster and easier to import for the south
Asian countries from TAR, Acharya added.
"These opportunities will develop TAR's economy vigorously" and
Nepal could also grasp the new opportunities, Acharya said.
The tourists visiting TAR could be attracted to Nepal, as it
will be new and the nearest destination from TAR.
"Trans-Himalayan region and birthplace of Lord Buddha at Lumbini
of Nepal could be appropriate destinations to the tourists going to
TAR," Acharya said.
The railway service will also help promote China-Nepal friendly
relations from the people's level.
"More Chinese people can come to Nepal and more Nepalese people
can go to China as the fare and time to visit another country by
the railway service have been decreased," he added.
The massive infrastructures of roads and railways in China's
Tibet have opened a possibility of closer economic cooperation
between China and Nepal as well as other countries south of the
Himalayas, said Anoop Ranjan Bhattarai, chairman of Nepal-China
Executive Council (NCEC).
The NCEC, a non-government China-Nepal business friendship
organization of Nepal, has been working for bilateral tourism
promotion, trade expansion and investment between the two countries
since three years ago, Bhattarai noted, adding, "The railway
service has added special and new momentum in these three main
mottoes of NCEC."
The railway will also benefit the direct bus service between
Lhasa of TAR and Nepali capital Kathmandu, which started operation
on May 1, 2005.
The railways have ushered in a new era in the Himalayan region,
said Upendra Gautam, general secretary of China Study Center,
another non-government friendship organization of Nepal.
In trans-Himalayan relationship, the impact, which it will
create in trans-Himalayan relationship, will be historic, Gautam
told Xinhua.
"China's Tibet is no more remote part of the world," he
added.
Chinese leaders have already declared that the railway is going
to be extended further south as far as to the border areas.
The improvement of infrastructures in TAR will have many
implications to mountains and hilly regions of Nepal.
"It will also help to maintain supply of essential commodities
to these areas of Nepal through TAR," Keshab Poudel, senior
journalist of Nepal said.
(Xinhua News Agency July 17, 2006)