Tibet Exports Less in First Half

Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region is trying to get rid of the shadow of March 14 riot in Lhasa, the regional capital, and kept a slight increase in foreign trade in the first half of the year.

The plateau region did 167.82 million U.S. dollars worth of foreign trade from January to June, a year-on-year rise of two percent, according to information from the regional government.

In breakdown, imports made up 29.66 million dollars, up 13.4 percent, while exports 138.16 million dollars, down by 0.1 percent.

After the Lhasa riot, Tibet tightened border security, which in turn hurt border trade.

Tibet had been doing trade with 55 countries and regions by late 2007, a rise of 13 from the previous year. And Nepal remained Tibet's largest trade partner, and the volume of foreign trade between Nepal and Tibet rose by 45.81 percent to hit 262 million dollars, accounting for 66.67 percent of Tibet's total foreign trade.

Source: CRIEnglish