The construction of a cross-border railway bridge linking Russia and China – the first of its kind to be built over the Heilongjiang River (known as Amur in Russia) – officially began on Wednesday 26 February in Russia’s far eastern Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

The 6735-metre bridge will connect Tongjiang Port in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province with the Russian village of Nizhneleninskoye.

Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui and Russian Deputy Transport Minister Alexey Tsydenov attended the opening ceremony in Nizhneleninskoye.

The bridge, designed with an annual passage capacity of 21 million tonnes, is expected to highly improve the transport conditions of Tongjiang Port and offer a shortcut between China and Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Amur Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Magadan Oblast and Sakha (Yakut) Republic.

The construction is forecast to take two and a half years with an estimated total investment of 2.583 billion Chinese yuan (about 422 million US dollars).

China Railway Engineering Corporation, the Heilongjiang provincial government, and the Far East and Baikal Region Development Fund Open Joint Stock Company are the project’s investors.

This railway project is the culmination of a five-year negotiation period between China and Russia.

(Source: http://french.cri.cn/621/2014/02/26/102s370653.htm http://french.peopledaily.com.cn/Economie/8549189.html )