With a new railway in sight, shrewd businessmen are hoping to localize the production of "hadas", a token of Tibetan culture, which for centuries have been manufactured elsewhere and transported to Tibet on horsebacks and trucks.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway that is set to operate on Saturday will bring in quality silk from eastern China provinces, out of which Tibetan workers will make their own hadas, said Bianba Ciren, a 31-year-old businessman in Xigaze, southern Tibet.

When Bianba Ciren set up his private company last year to produce Tibetan specific commodities, he was keeping his fingers crossed that the new rail link, whose track laying was completed last October, will enable him to set up the first ever local hada brand.

His company, a joint venture with a hada workshop based in Qionglai city, southwest China's Sichuan Province, involves an initial investment of 1.8 million yuan (225,000 U.S. dollars) and has 30 modern weaving machines.

His employees are all Tibetan herders except for three experienced workers he recruited from Sichuan to train the green hands and maintain the equipment.

Even today, 80 percent of the hadas on sale in Lhasa are made in Qionglai, a traditional silk production base and major stop-off point on the Cha Ma Road which literally means Tea Horse Road linking the arid plains of Tibet with mountain valley communities of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

Until highways were built in the 1950s, hadas had to be carried by "coolies" through the mountains to Qionglai, where the tea horse caravan would ship them into Tibet on horseback.

Today, Bianba Ciren does not just buy silk from Sichuan, but from renowned silk producers in the eastern Jiangsu Province as well. It takes 10 to 12 days on average to truck the raw material to Xigaze.

"The new railway will cut transportation time and costs by half," he said. "This year, the company's net profit will reach 500,000 yuan (62,500 U.S. dollars), up from last year's 120,000 yuan (15,000 U.S. dollars)."

The history-making railway, the world's highest, runs 1,956 km from Qinghai's provincial capital Xining to Lhasa in Tibet. It is expected to be extended further to Xigaze sometime before 2010.

Bianba Ciren's company presently produces around 100,000 pieces of hada a month, most of which are sold in Xigaze.

Once the railway becomes formally operative and bulk production starts, it will be producing more than 2 million pieces a year. "Hopefully, our hada brand 'Zhaxi Pagba' will take the lion's share of the market in Lhasa and across Tibet," he said.

In the Tibetan language, Zhaxi stands for "auspicious" and Pagba, booming trade.

"It'd be great if hadas made by us Tibetans become available in Lhasa," said Tubdain, a 52-year-old photographer in Lhasa.

Hadas, which are white silk scarves symbolizing respect and blessing, are widely used in Tibet. The most frequently bought hadas are now sold for 0.5 to 2 yuan each.

Experts say hadas first appeared in Tibet more than 2,000 years ago and were made of wool until silk was brought in by Princess Wencheng, the bride of Songzan Gambo who was then ruler of ancient Tibet, in 641.

Yet the token of Tibetan culture is rarely made in Tibet, whose cold, arid highland climate makes silk production impossible.

Source: Xinhua