Lhasa’s urban planning blueprint for the period 2009-2020 has recently won the approval of the State Council. This is the third urban plan for the city, and by far the largest and most politically-sensitive, since the Communists took power in Tibet in the early 1950s.

The two-and-a-half year preparation of the blueprint was completed with the help of Jiangsu province, which put up Rmb26m and sent nearly 100 professional planners; the Lhasa government invested more than Rmb13m and sent its own team of planners.