Tibet railway in 2011

Over 6.5 million travelled


Beijing, Jan 3 (PTI) More than 6.5 million people travelled on the world''s highest rail route, the Qinghai-Tibet railway, in 2011, up 9 per cent from 2010, the railway company said Tuesday.

The high-elevation railway that connects Xining, capital of Qinghai Province, to Tibet''s provincial capital of Lhasa, also transported 40 million tonnes of cargo in 2011, up 8 per cent year-on-year, an official with the Xining-based Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company said.

The number of passengers is likely to reach 6.9 million this year, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Tibet Autonomous Region in southwestern China has seen tourism boom since the railway began operations in July 2006.

A total of 8.43 million tourists, mostly Chinese visited Tibet in the first 11 months of 2011, a 27.7 per cent increase from the same period the previous year, according to Tibet''s tourism bureau.