The Vietnamese government has just approved an agreement between
Vietnam and China on building a bridge over the Red River to allow
for the transport of people and goods, local newspaper Youth
reported Monday.
Construction of the bridge, linking he Vietnamese northern Lao
Cai Province with Hekou county in China's
Yunnan Province, is expected to start late this month and open
to traffic in mid-2007. The building of the bridge will help with
the development of two economic corridors and the Beibu Gulf
economic belt involving many Chinese and Vietnamese localities.
The four-lane bridge, 21.5 meters wide and 295 meters in long,
will also help promote tourism and trade exchanges between
Vietnam's northwestern and China's southwestern regions.
In 2005, over 2.2 million tons of cargo and 1.4 million people
went through the international border gate of Lao Cai-Hekou putting
tremendous pressure on the two existing bridges, according to
officials from the Lao Cai People's Committee.
Vietnam's import-export trade with China through the border gate
has grown annually by 15 percent in recent years, according to the
committee. The figure is expected to surpass US$1 billion in
2012.
Economic and trade relations between the two countries have
earned encouraging results in recent years. China's statistics show
the bilateral trade surged 21.6 percent to reach US$8.2 billion in
2005. Of the total China exported US$5.64 billion worth of goods
and?imported US$2.55 billion--up 32.5 percent and 2.8 percent
respectively.
(Xinhua News Agency March 20, 2006)