Bidding opens for sea bridge

GUANGZHOU: Bidding for designing the longest sea link, a bridge connecting major cities in the affluent Pearl River Delta, opened last weekend.

The 29.6-km bridge, to link Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao, is estimated to cost up to 72.6 billion yuan ($10 billion). It will connect the reclaimed island off Gongbei of Macao and the eastern artificial island for the tunnel section of Hong Kong.

At the annual session of the National People's Congress early in March, Premier Wen Jiabao said the bridge construction would begin towards the end of 2009.