Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, Apr 17, 1996

LHASA (April 15) XINHUA - Foreign capital in Tibet is expected to grow annually at a rate of 15 percent during the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000), with contractual funds expected to reach 14 million U.S.dollars each year by 2000.

According to the autonomous region's department in charge of foreign trade and economic co-operation, it plans to increase utilization of foreign funds, and bring in state-of-the-art technology and advanced managerial skills, to develop its processing industry.

The annual increase in Tibet's processing trade, which accounts for 10 percent of its total foreign trade volume presently, is expected to reach 40 percent by the year 2010.

The processing trade will replace general trade in playing a key role in Tibet's foreign trade, a major adjustment in the autonomous region's overseas trade structure.

Tibet's rich resources are useful to the development of large-scale processing industry and its geographical position makes it easy to develop foreign trade, so processing is thought to be a promising industry in the near future by some economists.