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A 36-kilometre bridge will connect the towns of Cixi and Zhapu in East China's Zhejiang Province, located on either side of Hangzhou Bay. It should open to traffic in 2009 and cut the journey between Ningbo and Shanghai by 120 kilometres. Zhejiang Province has started to build the world's longest trans-oceanic bridge.

Construction of what will be the world's longest trans-oceanic bridge began Sunday afternoon in Cixi in East China's Zhejiang Province as the first stone of its foundation was laid.

The 36-kilometre bridge over Hangzhou Bay will create a short-cut from Ningbo to Shanghai. Vehicles travelling between the two Yangtze River Delta cities currently have to use the already busy Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo expressway.

The bridge will shorten the journey between Shanghai and Ningbo by 120 kilometres, making it a 179-kilometre journey, Zhejiang Governor Lu Zushan said Sunday.

"It will certainly enable each part of the delta to develop much closer relations with one another, and greatly enhance the area's overall economic growth,'' said Lu.

Thousands of local people Sunday flocked to the site to witness the historic moment in Cixi, a county-level city under Ningbo's jurisdiction.

Authorities said the bridge is expected to be completed in five years and open for traffic in 2009.

Wang Yong, chief director of the Hangzhou Bay Trans-Oceanic Bridge Construction Command Post, said the bridge will be one of the most important not only in China but in the world "for it is not only the longest one (over a sea) but also will be built in the world's most complicated sea environment, with one of the three biggest tides on Earth, the effect of typhoons and the difficult content of the sea soil.''

That is why preparatory work started on the bridge as far back as 1994, said Wang. During the past nine years, more than 120 technical research projects have been carried out on the planning of the bridge, with the help of more than 700 experts from throughout the world.

According to the construction plan, the bridge will have six lanes for vehicles travelling at 100 kilometres per hour. Its designed service life is 100 years.

The construction project involves investment of over 11.8 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion), 35 per cent or around 297 million yuan (US$36 million) of which has been raised by businesses in Zhejiang. Another 7 billion (US$846 million) or 59 per cent was provided as loans from the State Development Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Bank and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

The Yangtze River Delta covers an area of 100,100 square kilometres and has a population of 135 million. It is regarded as the world's sixth-largest metropolitan area after London and Paris. It includes the 15 most prosperous cities in China as well as half of the country's 100 wealthiest counties.

Although the area has only 10.4 per cent of China's population, it accounted for 22.1 per cent of the country's gross domestic products last year, 24.5 per cent of the country's revenues and 28.5 per cent of the country's import and export volume.

Governor Lu said: "It will be much easier for the area to jointly work on several grand projects, such as international tourism development, the building of world-class deep-sea ports, and so on.''

Recent schemes in the area include Shanghai's Yangshan deep-sea port, which involves investment of 12 billion yuan (US$1.45 billion) and is scheduled to be completed in 2005.

The development of Shanghai into an international shipping centre will also involve Ningbo, Zhoushan and Jiangsu Province's Taicang, which boast of some of the best deep channels in the country.

At the northern end of the Hangzhou Bay bridge, a new industrial zone is under construction in Jiaxing. It will cover an area of 25 square kilometres.

On the southern side, another new industrial zone with total investment of over 1.7 billion yuan (US$205 million) is also under construction.

Ningbo has become a new investment option for many transnational corporations in Shanghai. With more convenient transportation between the two, corporations are expected to be increasingly willing to invest in the city, where land prices are comparatively cheaper.

Another bridge is being built between the island city of Zhoushan and the mainland, costing 5.8 billion yuan (US$701 million).

Other large-scale projects being undertaken on both sides of Hangzhou Bay involve the chemical, steel and car industries.

"All these will surely combine to make a tremendous impact on the development of the whole delta area. A new era has arrived for the Yangtze River Delta,'' said Lu.

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