A grand ceremony was held in Golmud in northwest China's Qinghai Province Friday to mark the start of construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

Jiang Zemin, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, sent a congratulatory letter for the event.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji announced the start of the construction at the ceremony.

A similar ceremony was held in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Friday morning. Vice-premier Wu Bangguo attended this ceremony.

The 1,118-kilometer railway, the first linking Tibet with the rest of China, will extend from Lhasa in Tibet to Golmud in Qinghai Province in northwest China. It will be the longest and the most elevated railway on highlands in the world.

More than 960 kilometers, or over four fifths of the railway will be built at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters above sea level, and over half of it will be laid on frozen earth.

(Xinhua 06/29/2001)