By Xinhua,
Jiaxing (China) : World’s longest sea bridge opened Thursday, spanning the Hangzhau Bay in the East China Sea to boost economic integration and development in the Yangtze River delta.
The $1.69 billion, 36-km bridge, China’s first public infrastructure with part private funding, connects Shanghai with Ningbo, cutting the distance between the two delta cities by 120 km. It is designed to last 100 years.
Private investors funded almost 30 percent of the project.
The cable-stayed bridge with a 32-km section spanning the sea will also connect cities like Haiyan, Jiaxing and, Cixi in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
Construction of the six-lane bridge, which will allow a speed of 100 km per hour, started in November, 2003 and was completed in June last year.
A wastewater disposal plant with a daily capacity of 270,000 tons has been built near the bridge in Jiaxing to collect and treat wastewater from neighbouring areas.
“Taking environmental protection into account, the top priority for us is to prevent the Hangzhou Bay water from being polluted,” said Qiu Dongyao, Jiaxing executive vice mayor.
As a shortcut between Zhejiang and Shanghai, the bridge is expected to greatly facilitate traffic flow in the booming Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo triangle.
It will also help boost economic integration and development in the Yangtze delta, which covers almost 100,000 sq km of land comprising Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu. It is home to 72.4 million people.
“I think it will be easier for our company to recruit high-calibre employees in the future, who always prefer working in small cities like Cixi but living in big cities like Shanghai,” said Sun Ningwei, vice president of the Xinhai Electric Co. Ltd. based in Cixi.