Tibet earmarks 200 bln yuan to build roads

LHASA - Tibet autonomous region in southwest China will spend 238.8 billion yuan (about $37 billion) to build roads in order to improve transportation by 2020.

The money will be used to build 32,000 kilometers of roads in Tibet over the next five years, 3,500 kilometers of which will be high-grade highways, said Yongje, deputy director of the transportation department of Tibet.

Tibet's far-flung villages and border areas will be accessible through these roads, he said.

"By 2020, we will eliminate the bottleneck effect of transportation on social and economic development," he added.

The total length of roads in Tibet is 78,000 kilometers, he said.

Road spending was 67.9 billion yuan in the last five-year period, from 2011 to 2015, enabling traffic to reach more than 11,000 villages and 1,730 temples.