China to build airport in poor Tibetan prefecture

Authorities in northwest China's Qinghai province plan to build an airport in the province's poorly-developed Golog Tibetan autonomous prefecture to boost the local economy and help the government better cope with emergencies, local officials said Wednesday.

Construction on the Dawu Airport, located near the prefecture's government seat, is expected to start in 2013, said Wu Ziqiang, deputy head of the prefecture government. The project is estimated to cost 1.17 billion yuan (186 million U.S. dollars).

The airport will be the fourth one being built in Amdo, a sprawling Tibetan-populated area that spans parts of the provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai. The other three airports -- two in Sichuan and one in Gansu -- will be put into use in 2013.

China has started building a number of airports in its Tibetan regions over the past few years. In the Tibet autonomous region, six airports are in operation, with construction on the world's highest airport in Nagqu -- 4,436 meters above sea level -- starting this year.

Wu said preparation for the construction of the Dawu Airport was made difficult due to Golog's rough terrain, adverse weather, and high altitude -- about 4,000 meters above sea level. It took four years for the State Civil Aviation Administration to approve a construction plan for the airport.

The airport will significantly improve transportation to Golog, whose main town is a six-hour drive away from the provincial capital of Xining, Wu said.

Golog borders Yushu, a Tibetan prefecture hit by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake in 2010 that killed 2,698 people. Officials said that if not for an airport that was built near the prefecture's main town of Gyegu before the disaster, the death toll could've been much higher.

The airport helped cut the travel time from Gyegu to Xining from 10 hours to just one. About 2,133 injured people were airlifted out of Yushu, while flights sent 17,051 rescuers and more than 2,100 tonnes of relief materials to the quake zone in a timely fashion.

Golog remains the least-developed among China's ten Tibetan autonomous prefectures, all outside the Tibet autonomous region, in terms of both economic activity and income. Last year, the gross domestic product of Golog was 2.6 billion yuan, or 3.4 percent of that of Xining. The average annual income of rural residents and herdsmen in Golog was only 2,964 yuan in 2011.

Golog officials have vowed to boost the region's development by fast-tracking large infrastructure projects and developing a high-end tourism industry.

The provincial tourism bureau said it will spend 200 million yuan to develop the Mt. Nyanpo Yutse region in south Golog into a "world-class" plateau resort.