Li Jianhua
June 29, 2016
Photo taken on May 28, 2016 shows the Nagqu section of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The 1,956-kilometer-long Qinghai-Tibet railway, the world’s highest altitude train line, has been put into service for 10 years. It links Lhasa, capital of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, and Xining, capital of Qinghai Province in northwest China. [Photo: Xinhua]
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway.
Over the past decade, the 2000-kilometre railway linking Xining, capital of Qinghai Province, and Lhasa, capital of the Tibet region, has brought a big difference to the lives of people living in Tibet.
CRI’s Li Jianhua reports from Lhasa.
Ever since the operation of the world’s highest and longest plateau railroad in 2006, Tibet’s economy has been growing by leaps and bounds.
Statistics issued by the Tibetan government show that its GDP surged from 25 billion yuan, about 3.8 billion US dollars, in 2005 to over 100 billion yuan in 2015, with an annual growth rate of over 10-percent.
Nagqu in northern Tibet, the largest prefecture in the autonomous region, is representative of Tibet’s rapid economic growth, owing to the construction of the railway.
Nagqu Development and Reform Commission Division Chief Zhong Liang says the railroad greatly facilitated the development of the local industries.
“The opening of Qinghai-Tibet railway paved the way for the development of local tourism, commerce and service industry. These tertiary industries have been growing rapidly. Last year, the output of these sectors reached 5-billion yuan, or 760 million US dollars, which accounts for more than 60-percent of local GDP. ”
Three years after the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, Nagqu Logistics Centre was built with a total investment of 230 million US dollars.
The centre not only provides essential logistic functions such as transportation and storage, but also takes care of product processing and other services.
Zhong says the construction of the railroad and the logistics centre based has increased the living standards of local people to a large degree.
“If it were not for the Qinghai-Tibet railway, there wouldn’t be the logistics centre here. Ever since the logistics centre was put into use, the means of transporting goods in and out of Nagqu has shifted to railroad from its traditional highway transportation, which greatly boosts the local economic development. In addition, the biggest beneficiaries of the logistics centre and the railroad are the local herdsmen, as they bring much convenience to the selling of yak meat and dairy products.”
Zhong added that the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway didn’t cut off the traditional highway freight industry; instead, it stimulated the growth of it. In 2015, the highway freight volume in Nagqu reached 680 thousand tonnes, with an annual growth of nearly 10-percent.
What’s more, Zhong says the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway has also affected employment rates.
“Ever since the railway was put into operation, the employment rate in Nagqu has been increasing. In 2015, more than 2,000 people found employment, an increase of 5 percent.”The construction of the Qinghai-Tibet railway started in 2001 with an investment of 28.5 billion yuan, or more than 4 billion US dollars.
Built on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which is called “the Roof of the World, “the highest point of the line reaches nearly 5,100 metres above sea level, and over 550 kilometres of the line are within the “frozen earth” area. The Qinghai-Tibet railway opened on July 1, 2006.
For CRI, this is Li Jianhua in Lhasa, Tibet.
