With an historic train line to Tibet about to open, China is now planning to
spend around 700 million dollars on a vast new road network for the Himalayan
territory, state press has reported.
China will this year spend 5.7 billion yuan (US$700m) on road
construction in Tibet as it starts building 21 highway projects and nine other
major new roads, the Xinhua news agency said.
Part of the money will pay for upgrading the highway connecting the Himalayan
kingdom of Nepal with Tibet, a mountainous region which has long had poor roads.
Highways have still not reached more than 1,000 villages in Tibet, while only
half of the region's roads have been topped with asphalt, Xinhua quoted Zhao
Shijun, chief of Tibet's communications bureau, as saying.
Over the past five years, the central Chinese government has invested about
1.81 billion dollars on building and upgrading roads and highways in Tibet.
The government is meanwhile building the first railway to link Tibet to the
rest of China, with the 1,142-kilometer (708-mile) Qinghai-Tibet line due to
open in July.
China hails the line as a major step in developing and modernizing Tibet and
improving the living standards of its residents.