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Lhasa Begins Major Expansion Amid Tourist, Migrant Influx
DPA; Xinhua) Authorities in Lhasa have begun building a huge new district tohelp the city accommodate an influx of tourists and migrants, state mediaannounced. The city will finish the Liuwu New District by 2009 to house 110,000people on undeveloped land south of the Lhasa river to "divert the city'sgrowing population and protect cultural relics", Xinhua reported. Shi Wenjiang,head of the district government said: "With the economic development of Tibet,especially in tourism, more people are choosing to live in Lhasa and the limitedarea of the current downtown district cannot meet the needs of development".Most of Lhasa's 500,000 population occupy just 59 square kilometres of the oldcity and the new district, 10 kilometres south, will provide an extra 42 squarekilometres, according to Xinhua. The local government has recently begunconstructing main roads and plans to develop the district into what Shi labelled"a high-technology industrial centre that could potentially provide 114,000jobs".
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