The 36 km (22 miles) long Hangzhou Bay Bridge, which is the world’s longest sea bridge, starts at Jiaxing, near Shanghai, and ends at Cixi, about 70 km (43 miles) from Ningbo city in east China’s Zhejiang Province. The $1.5 billion, S-shaped bridge shows that China is investing in infrastructure to keep raising the potential of the world’s fourth-largest economy.

By cutting the transit time between the two port cities to two and a bit hours from four, the 36 km (22.5 mile) sea bridge, the world’s longest, will give a further boost to one of the most prosperous corners of China when it opens next June.

Lu Zheng, who directs the Institute of Industrial Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, said, ‘Construction of the bridge will accelerate the flow of goods and talent and give a push to the integration of economic development in the Yangtze River Delta.’

This is all part of the logistics improvement in China which has seen spending on fixed assets increase steadily at around 25% annually in recent years.

Just a week before the Hangzhou Bay bridge was finished on June 26, workers completed the Sutong bridge over the Yangtze river, less than 300 km away.

That $845 million bridge also set a record: its 1,088 meter span makes it the world’s longest cable-stayed bridge.

China plans to spend $205 billion on its railways alone between 2006 and 2010.

Like any number of Chinese cities, Ningbo has taken to heart the old Chinese saying ‘If you want to be rich, you must first build roads.’ It plans to spend more than RMB30 billion ($4 billion) between 2006 and 2010 on railways, highways and bridges.

Ningpo is a city of 5.5 million, it is home to a swarm of manufacturers including well-known Chinese names such as Ningbo Bird, a mobile phone maker, and Younger, a garment producer.
Shorter traveling times will make it easier for manufacturers to team up with design professionals in Shanghai.

Lu Zheng, the CASS researcher, said, ‘That will definitely help Ningbo upgrade its manufacturing industry since Shanghai is now increasingly becoming a design hub in addition to its role as China’s financial and research and development center.’