The Tibet Autonomic Region will construct 100 small
cities and towns centered on the Qinghai-Tibet, Sichuan-Tibet and China-Nepal roads and
county towns in the coming five years, so as to promote rural urbanization and boost the
development of the secondary and tertiary industries.
It is reported that Tibet will construct small cities and towns in line with the market
mechanism, pursue the principle of "one who invests gets benefits", and make
unified plans; meanwhile, it will combine the construction of small cities and towns with
the economic development of framing and pastoral areas, so as to turn small cities and
towns into the circulating and trading centers for capital goods, means of livelihood, and
farm and animal by-products.
Tibet has112 organic towns, basically forming an urban network with Lhasa as the center,
towns where the region is located as the second-level center, and county towns as well as
big organic towns as the third-level center. However, as urban construction in Tibet is
still in the initial stage, the region's urbanization level is only 9.8 percent. Except
for the location of the region, infrastructures in most cities and towns are poor.
Xu Mingyang, executive vice-chairman of the Tibet Autonomic Region, said that from now to
the year 2005, Tibet will basically complete the framework, supply-drainage piping network
as well as the urban comprehensive flood-control system for county towns and border
trading port cities. Innocuous disposal of garbage has been realized in towns where
prefecture, city and county are located, border trading port cities, towns with a
population of over 4,000 each, key organic towns and industrial and mining areas.
Xu predicts that over 60 percent of the urban residents of the region will be able to use
liquefied gas by 2006; the problem of providing heating for residents will gradually be
solved by 2008; by 2010, the housing renovation rate in the region's county towns and
border trading port cities will reach 80 percent. By then, urban population of the region
will reach about 780,000, and the urbanization level will hit 22 percent |
