Plans are afoot to add six more rail lines to the Qinghai-Tibet railway to boost the region's economy, a railway spokesman said yesterday at the Beijing International Media Center.

Included in the country's medium- and long-term railway network plan, the six lines are expected to be completed and put into operation before 2020, Wang Yongping, spokesman of the Ministry of Railways, said in Beijing. Detailed plans and cost of construction have yet to be finalized, he added.

The six new tracks include one from Lhasa to Nyingchi and one from Lhasa to Xigaze, both in the Tibet autonomous region. Three tracks will originate from Golmud in Qinghai province and run to Chengdu in Sichuan province, Dunhuang in Gansu province, and Kuerle of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The sixth will link Xining, capital of Qinghai, with Zhangye in Gansu.