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2 Railway transforms Tibetan
trade By Daniel Allen
BEIJING - Just how much difference can
1,100 kilometers of train track make? For better
or worse, the vaunted Qinghai-Tibet Railway,
opened just 10 months ago, is already having a
major impact on the Tibetan economy. Government
sources report that Tibet's trade turnover jumped
more than 18% to US$140 million in the first 11
months of 2006, resulting in a threefold increase
in the region's trade surplus over 2005.
While the figures may seem small, they
signify the very beginning
of a
long and carefully considered development process.
Newly prospected mineral deposits have turned
Xizang, as Tibet is called in Mandarin, into a
truly expansive western treasure house, ready to
bankroll Chinese industry's continued breakneck
development. According to the Xinhua news service,
production output could surpass 10 billion yuan
($1.25 billion) and account for one-third of the
region's gross domestic product (GDP) within five
to 10 years.
For decades, social and
economic progress in Tibet has been hampered by
its poorly developed transport infrastructure -
the result of sluggish investment and challenges
posed by the region's remoteness and
unaccommodating geography. Although the Chinese
government likes to tout the benefits that the new
railway will bring to the Tibetan people, the
railway has overt economic objectives - to
stimulate trade between Tibet and the rest of
China, and to allow more tourists to experience
life on the "rooftop of the world".
The
Qinghai-Tibet Railway is just one piece of an
infrastructure jigsaw slowly but surely being put
together by the Chinese government. Beijing's
"western development plan", designed to stimulate
inter-regional and cross-border trade, is
resulting in an ever wider network or roads and
rail lines across Tibet.
Last July, an
ancient trade route across the 4,300-meter-high
Nathu La pass leading to the Indian state of
Sikkim, closed since the 1962 Sino-Indian border
war, was dramatically reopened for commercial
activity. This year construction work will begin
on 21 highway projects and nine other major roads
in Tibet, while the highway to the neighboring
Himalayan country of Nepal will simultaneously be
upgraded. And, according to Xinhua, work on a
three-year rail project connecting Lhasa with
Shigatse, Tibet's second city near the Nepalese
border, will begin next year.
In 2006
Tibet received more than 2.6 million tourists, up
44% on 2005, with tourist revenue surging 45% to
2.8 billion yuan ($350 million). The Chinese
government is projecting that this figure will
exceed 5 billion yuan ($700 million) per year by
2010, with the number of annual visitors rising to
10 million by 2020. In anticipation of rising
tourist numbers, the daily entry quota into
Lhasa's Potala Palace, former chief residence of
the Dalai Lama and now a state museum, has already
been raised from 1,500 to 2,300.
Most of
the passengers now arriving at Lhasa railway
station, including workers, business people and
officials, are ethnic Chinese. Many of Lhasa's
taxi drivers, most of whom are Han, see a
profitable future ahead. "Everything is changing
here very quickly, mostly due to the new train.
This is only the beginning," said Wang, 29, who
came to Lhasa in October with his family from
Hebei province.
After investing in a Lhasa
brewery three years ago, Hong Kong businessman
Wallace Yu saw beer sales rise steadily. When work
began on the railway back in 2001, Yu decided to
embark on an ambitious new project - selling
bottled spring water sourced at more than 5,000
meters. The key to making the project work is that
the site is now just 23km from a train station.
Now another partner in the brewery,
Denmark's Carlsberg Group, is exploring
opportunities to make the water available outside
Tibet. By making use of the railway, bottles are
soon set to hit Beijing shelves, and there are
plans to begin exporting Lhasa's very own Ice Beer
to other Asian countries this year.
Some
native Tibetans are also benefiting from the
railway. Jeep driver Pasang, who regularly ferries
tourists overland from Lhasa to Everest Base Camp,
is happy to see the numbers of tourists
increasing. "Before, I never used to work five
days a week, especially in the winter season. Now
I'm really busy - I take tourists from other
places in China and from all over the world."
Tibetan rug seller Dorjay has also been
doing a brisker trade since the train came to
town. "I'm now selling twice as many rugs and
souvenirs as last year," he said. "I've also been
contacted by various companies in Beijing who want
to stock my products. The railway has really
helped my business grow."
The growing
influx of tourist dollars is just one part of
Tibet's changing economic picture. The new railway
has also lit a fire under the region's mining
sector, as individuals and national and overseas
corporations look to participate in an
increasingly frenetic Tibetan-style gold rush.
Until last year, few of Tibet's mineral
deposits had been exploited. Fewer than 1% of
discovered mines had been prospected, only
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