Lhasa, 25th September: Telephone networks in all counties of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region have been converted into program-controlled systems.

Some 98 per cent of the region's telephone networks have been linked up with the national long-distance automation network, which reaches 180 countries and regions.

This achievement is five years ahead of schedule in the central government's target of modernizing telecommunications facilities in Tibet.

Program-controlled switching with 1,240 lines was operating in six prefectures by the end of 1994, and new telephone networks have been built in mountainous or poverty-stricken areas this year. The region now has some 70 VSAT [expansion unknown] ground satellite telecommunication stations and two optical fibre lines, one linking the region's capital of Lhasa with Xigaze and the other with Shannan Prefecture, have been laid.

The local telecommunications department also opened 450 digital circuits between Lhasa and Beijing, Chengdu, Xian, Wuhan, Shanghai and Guangzhou respectively.

Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing