Over 70% of villages in Tibet have roads
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-06-07 15:36

More than 70 percent of villages and over 90 percent of towns in Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwest China, have roads, according to the latest report from the Communications Bureau of Tibet.

The roads in rural areas paves enable farmers and herdsmen to travel and traffic their agricultural and side-line products, said Phuntsok, bureau director.

Roads in Tibet total 41,302 kilometers since the landmark roads from Sichuan and Qinghai provinces to Tibet were built 50 years ago when Tibet had almost no roads at all.

To date, 627 towns and 4,214 villages have roads. Tibet has 683 towns and 5,956 villages. As road traffic has been improving, investors drove to regions where they seldom went previously for traffic problems, Phuntsok said.

The central government has kept increasing funds for road construction in Tibet and the figure for the last three years alone amounted to 7.2 billion yuan (US$870 million), according to the director.

Phuntsok said road investment will hit 3.6 billion yuan (US$435 million) this year, and the farmers and herdsmen's income from labor service at road construction sites is expected to rise to 400 million yuan (US$48 million) in total.

Close