Tibet exports to South Asia affected by blocked route
The 8.1-magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on Saturday and killed over 4,000 people may dampen the Sino-Nepalese bilateral trade, an expert said on Monday.[Special coverage]
Sino-Nepalese bilateral trade might substantially decline in the short term, as a major trade route between China and Nepal had become blocked after the earthquake, said Hu Shisheng, director of Institute of Asian and African Studies at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
The trade route, namely the Sino-Nepalese Highway and opened to traffic in the 1960s, connects Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region and Kathmandu, capital of Nepal.
The Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday that a section of the highway, from Nielamu to Khasa, two towns on the border of Nepal and Tibet, had been blocked by landslides caused by the earthquake.
Hu told the Global Times on Monday that the possible slide in the Sino-Nepalese bilateral trade would not strongly affect Nepal's economy, but it might seriously impact Tibet's economy.
Hu said that Nepal might increase reliance on Indian imports to make up for the loss of imports from China. But "most of the commodities in Tibet have been exported to South Asia via Nepal. When the major route between Tibet and Nepal is cut off, Tibet's export market will be almost completely destroyed," said Hu.
The Xinhua News Agency reported in January that Tibet's exports to Nepal had reached 10.65 billion yuan ($1.72 billion), which accounted for 91.15 percent of the overall trade value in Tibet.
However, an employee of the board of trade of the Tibet local government told the Global Times on Monday that the earthquake "has had little impact" on the bilateral trade between Tibet and Nepal.
Apart from the Sino-Nepalese Highway, another roadway between Jilong, a Tibetan town and Rasuwa, a Nepal district, had also been affected by the earthquake.
The roadway was officially put into use in December 2014 and could connect Tibet and Kathmandu.
But the National Development and Reform Commission released a message on Sunday that a section of the Jilong-Rasuwa roadway had been reopened.
Hu said the Jilong-Rasuwa roadway was in better condition than the Sino-Nepalese Highway. He suggested that the roadway should be improved so it could replace the Sino-Nepalese Highway in trade.
He also said that China's humanitarian aid to quake-hit Nepal could be seen as an opportunity for China to increase infrastructure investment in Nepal in the future.
According to a China Trade News report on April 24, Sino-Nepalese bilateral trade had reached $2.33 billion in 2014, up 3.38 percent year-on-year. China's exports to Nepal surged 3.28 percent to $2.283 billion in 2014, while Nepal's exports to China rose 8.5 percent to $47 million.
