The groundbreaking ceremony for the bridge was held simultaneously at both ends of the bridge on the Vietnamese and Chinese sides.
Deputy Minister of Construction Le Anh Tuan and a number of leaders of ministries and branches attended the groundbreaking ceremony on the Vietnamese side. On the foreign side, there were leaders of the Department of Roads, the Ministry of Transport, leaders of Yunnan province and the Consulate General of Vietnam in Kunming attending.
Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony, Deputy Minister of Construction Le Anh Tuan said that the bridge was built not only to serve the role of being located on a vital traffic route, helping to shorten the travel distance between the two localities but also creating great momentum for trade development, tourism, and cultural exchange between the two countries.
According to Mr. Le Anh Tuan, the completion of the project will open up many opportunities for economic and investment cooperation, while improving the lives of people on both sides of the border. This project is a testament to the commitment of the Vietnamese and Chinese governments to develop the border area's transport infrastructure system, towards a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous development area.
The road bridge project across the Red River on the Bat Xat - Ba Sai border is a low- tower cable-stayed bridge, including 3 spans, 230m long, beams made of prestressed reinforced concrete, constructed using the cantilever casting method combined with fan-based rope weaving.
The bridge tower is 20m high from the bridge surface; the bridge width is 35.3m. Regarding funding: each side will bear half, the Vietnamese side will implement about 282 billion VND.
This is the fourth bridge to be built in the Lao Cai border gate economic area (after Ho Kieu I, II bridges and Kim Thanh bridge), expected to be completed in 18 months.
The road bridge project across the Red River was discussed by the two countries nearly 10 years ago, since 2016.
After the efforts of the two provinces of Lao Cai (Vietnam) and Yunnan (China) to complete the bridge construction investment procedures, the project has now started construction.
