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Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region is looking for new ways to increase its border trade in the tenth five-year-plan period (2001-2005).

In an interview with journalists from "China's Tibet", a Beijing-based bimonthly magazine, Benba, director of the Border Trade Bureau of the Tibet Autonomous Region, said that they plan to establish new border trade markets in 27 counties and townships and to do their best to open up the whole of Yadong County.

Benba said the autonomous region is also considering the construction of one to two free trade zones where tariff exemptions will apply to specific goods..

Benba believed that more commodities should be imported from Nepal in a bid to narrow long-standing favorable balance of trade between Tibet and Nepal and to enhance Nepal's enthusiasm for developing trade with Tibet.

While striving to find more Tibet-made commodities for the border trade, Tibet will also encourage neighboring provinces and autonomous regions to trade with it, Benba said.

There are now 28 border trade markets in Tibet and 65 businesses which specialize in border trade in the southwestern Chinese region.

Tibet imported and exported 110 million U.S. dollars worth of goods in 2000, an 18-fold increase over the 1995 figure of 5.79 million U.S. dollars. Border trade makes up 78.44 percent of the total regional foreign trade.