Work started on building Hainan-to-mainland bridge within five years

DEPUTY provincial governor Li Guoliang said Hainan province will deepen cooperation with the Pan Pearl River Delta region to accelerate the building of a projected 29.5-kilometre bridge across the Qiongzhou Strait separating the island province and the mainland, Xinhua reports.

Mr Li said the province will work towards its opening at the beginning of the 13th Five Year Plan that runs from 2016 to 2020. A series of pre-launch studies for the project in fields of passenger and cargo transport, environment and geology, technology and risk control are already underway.

Qiongzhou Strait is 80 kilometres from the east to the west and 29.5 kilometres north to the south. As the strait cuts off the ground transport, the bridge has been a development project between Guangdong and Hainan.

Mr Li said the bridge will end the transport bottleneck between Hainan and the mainland by extending the mainland's rail and expressway network to Hainan island. This will further facilitate the economic cooperation in the Pan Pearl River Delta, and enhance Hainan's competitiveness.