Authorities in Tibet started building the region's biggest
logistics center on Friday in a bid to further exploit the
potential of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway that opened a year ago and
boost the region's economic development.
The logistics center, covering 533 hectares, is located next to
a railway station at an altitude of 4,500 meters in Nagqu Township
of Nagqu County in northern Tibet.
It is scheduled to be finished within 15 months, costing almost
1.5 billion yuan (US$200 million), according to Hao Peng, executive
vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The center is expected to handle 2.23 million tons of cargo by
2015 and 3.1 million by 2020, including raw minerals, local herbs,
construction materials and commodity goods.
"The northern part of Tibet is rich in natural resources, and
the Nagqu logistics center will provide easier access to the
resources, which will drive the industrial development and trade in
the area and raise its self-development capabilities," said Lu
Chunfang, vice minister of railways, at Friday's inauguration
ceremony.
Dunzhu, a local herdsman, told Xinhua that she supported the
idea.
"To me, it means that I have access to more commodity goods my
family needs, and easier ways to sell our dairy goods," she
said.
The 1,956-km-long Qinghai-Tibet Railway opened on July 1 last
year has linked Tibet with the rest of China by train for the first
time.
Tibet's gross domestic product (GDP) posted a 14.7-percent
growth to reach 14 billion yuan (US$1.84 billion) in the first half
of this year, the highest over the past decade, according to the
Tibet Regional Statistics Bureau.
Thanks to the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the tertiary
industry, which features the consumption market and service
industry, has developed fast in the past year, the bureau said.
(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2007)
