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Railway to Tibet: Passengers stay away

By Lucy Hornby | Reuters

The first train from Lhasa Railway Station in Lhasa, Tibet, travels along a bridge heading for Lanzhou in Gansu province 1 July 2006. File photo/Reuters/China

The train line from Golmud to Lhasa, inaugurated on July 1, 2006, will be extended to the monastery town of Shigatse and resource-rich Nyingchi in the southeast within the next two or three years.

“Our experience with other lines holds true for this one too, that the initial benefit is economic and social,” said Bai Xiaochun, party secretary of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Co, who estimated the 30 billion yuan ($4.37 billion) line is losing 1.2 billion yuan a year.

China says the rail line will help bring economic development to ethnically distinct Tibet.

Tibetan activists say it speeds the immigration of Han Chinese to Lhasa and the plateau, and allows increased exploitation of Tibet’s significant mineral resources.

Between April and June, 327,000 fewer passengers travelled on the Beijing-Qinghai line than they had in 2007, after Tibet was closed to tourists following demonstrations against Chinese rule that turned violent in March, said Wang Yongping, spokesman for the Ministry of Railways. He did not give a figure for 2007.

Passenger traffic returned to the same level as 2007 just before the Olympics, but plunged again once the Olympics began in August in Beijing, said Wang Zhongyu, deputy general manager of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Co.

Cargo volume on the line increased by 28 percent in the first half of this year, but inbound cargo still exceeds outbound by a factor of seven to three, Wang said.

Most inbound cargo is building materials, including steel and cement, while outbound cargo includes 300,000 tonnes of mineral water marketed as “5100 Tibet Spring,” beer and dairy products, the officials said.

That discrepancy could even out as more mines start up. Production will begin in September at the Yulong mine and 10,000 tonne-per-year copper refinery in Qamdo, southeastern Tibet, the largest proven copper deposit in China, the Xinhua news agency said on Friday, citing local planning official Yang Qianrang.

The mine, with a proven deposit of 6.5 million tonnes of copper in ore form and prospective reserves of 10 million tonnes, will be the second largest in Asia. It is expected to produce 2,000 tonnes of refined copper this year, and expand to 30,000 tonnes by 2010 and 100,000 tonnes a year ultimately.

Railway spokesman Wang said no plan currently exists for the Shigatse spur to be extended to the border town of Yadong and on to other Himalayan nations.

($1=6.869 Yuan)

(Editing by Paul Tait)

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