Construction of Qinghai-Tibet railway and roads has caused no major environmental problems, a Chinese official told a meeting in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province.

Vice-Transportation Minister Hong Shanxiang said environmental protection measures had been taken in recent construction works of the Qinghai-Tibet railway and roads, successfully preventing environmental damage and erosion.

An inspection team of officials from the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Land and Resources, and State Forestry Administration, and zoologists and botanists had examined environmental protection works on Qinghai-Tibet roads and railways and issued a report saying the negative effects of construction on the environment were minimal, said Hong.

Construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway started in June 2001 and a total of 2 billion yuan (US$242 million) will be invested in environmental protection works such as building routes for wild animals and conservation of vegetation.

Hong said similar efforts were made in a project in April 2002 to readjust the Qinghai-Tibet road, which had been operating since1954 and carried 80 percent of the traffic entering Tibet.

(Xinhua News Agency November 5, 2003)