by Gilles Campion

LHASA, June 11 (AFP) - When the Lhasa stock exchange opened in January 1994 many doubted it had a future in Tibet where a yak remains more valuable than a limousine.

Three years later the gamble seems to have paid off and officials at the Lhasa Stock Exchange Centre claim to have attracted as many Tibetans trading in yaks as capitalist Han Chinese driving Mercedes.

_When we started in 1994 the transactions sometimes reached no more than a few hundred yuan (a few dozen dollars) a day," said Chen Ciduan, general manager of the stock exchange centre.

_But last year we recorded business worth 900 million yuan (108 million dollars), three times more than in 1995," he said proudly.

In the exchange offices are in the basement of a building next to the Potala, the Dalai Lama's former palace which dominates the city. Tibetans, their faces tanned by the sun, and Chinese in western suits, study television screens tracking China's stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

_On average between 700 and 800 people come each day to buy or sell," said Chen, himself a Han Chinese.

_The exchange already manages 14,000 client accounts and in the face of increasing demand we have been forced to limit the opening of new accounts to 40 a week, because our market is still too small."

Tibet has a population of 2.39 million people, of whom about 100,000, according to official statistics, are Han Chinese.

China has about 20 million shareholders, out of a population of more than 1.2 billion. _The Tibetan economy is developing and needs capital," Chen said. _And Tibetan firms have quickly understood they can use the bourse to find financing." Three Tibetan state companies are already quoted on the Shanghai bourse. A fourth, Lhasa Brewery Co., which makes the only local beer, on Monday issued 25 million shares on the Shenzhen bourse, at a unit price of 3.38 yuan (40 US cents). Subscription ends on Sunday, June 15. _The first day we received a total of 180 million yuan (nearly 27 million dollars) in subscription demands, more than twice what was expected," he added. _Many major investors from Beijing, as well as Sichuan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces came to Lhasa to try and buy shares."

In October 1996 when Tibet Gold Pearl, the largest Tibetan state company, entered the Shanghai bourse, it was 100 times oversubscribed. The stock rocketed and its 5.36 yuan share price tripled in nine months.

_We thought first of listing on the Shenzhen market, but it was not as good so we chose Shanghai," said Fan Chunxi, vice president of Tibet Gold Pearl. Out of the 76 million yuan brought in from the public, only half has been invested in Tibet, particularly in the antimony mines, he said. _At the end of this year, or the beginning of next year, we will have a new share issue." In July it will be the turn of a mining firm, Tibet Mining Development Co., to list on the Shanghai bourse, Chen said. _Many other companies are impatient to do the same and it will be to our benefit to speed their entry onto the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses."