(TibetanReview.net, Apr04, 2015) – China is to extend its railway network in Tibet close to Nepal’s border by 2020, reported railjournal.com Apr 2. The report said the chairman of Tibet Autonomous Region, Mr Losang Jamcan, had given this information to Nepalese president Mr Ram Baran Yadav during their meeting in Tibet’s capital Lhasa.
The report cited a statement issued by Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying Jamcan had informed Yadav at their meeting on Apr 1 that a new 540-km railway line will be built from Shigatse to Tibet’s border town and recently developed port of Kerung (Kyirong), which is just 35-km from the Nepalese border.
The report also noted that during bilateral talks in Kathmandu last December, China’s foreign minister Mr Wang Yi had called on his Nepalese counterpart Mr Mahendra Bahadur Pandey to commission a feasibility study for the extension of the line to Kathmandu and beyond.
China inaugurated the 253-km Lhasa-Shigatse extension of the Qinghai-Tibet railway in Aug 2014. It has also already started work on building an extension of this line to Nyingtri, which is not far from India’s border.