Proposed China rail expansions to stretch throughout Asia - Asian Correspondent / Michele Penna - Today, China Rail is the second biggest carrier of rail freight and the biggest carrier of passenger transport in the world. It has the largest combined rail traffic task of any national railway system in the world, carrying about a quarter of the world's railway traffic on about seven percent of the global route-km of public railway." ... According to Xinhua News Agency, the construction of a 253-km line from Tibet's capital Lhasa to Xigaze should soon be completed, either at the end of this year or at the beginning of the next. And there are talks of a possible rail link with Nepal, where Chinese companies are already building various infrastructures, including a new airport at Pokhara.... More controversial is the plan to build a new line between Vientiane and Kunming, in southern China, which would serve as a trade route between the two countries and as a link in a planned connection between China and Singapore. According to Laos' Energy and Mining Minister Soulivong Dalavong, by 2020 the railway could supply about 5 million tons a year of mineral resources to China, but Vientiane needs a US$ 7 billion loan from China's Export-Import Bank in order to kick-start the construction. Considering that Laos' total GDP last year was US$ 8.2 billion, one can understand how massive and controversial an enterprise this can be.