China has begun construction of a third civilian aiport in Tibet, the first in nearly three decades.
The Xinhua news agency says work crews broke ground over the weekend at a site in southeast Tibet’s Nyingtri prefecture.
To be completed in three years, the 94-million-US dollar airport will have a 3,000-metre runway and is expected to have a passenger flow of 120,000, mostly tourists, by 2010.
Project officials say the airport is being built to develop tourism in the region.
At present, tourists can only fly to Tibet via an airport in the capital Lhasa and one in eastern Tibet’s Chamdo prefecture — Qamdo in Chinese.
