Beijing, (Prensa Latina) China is building an undersea tunnel that will link the downtown of Xiamen city with Haicang District, in the southeastern Fujian province.
The bottom of the 9.03-km tunnel will be built 72.6 meters below the ocean surface and is expected to be completed in 2016 with an investment of 6-billion-yuan (949 million U.S. dollars).
Zhang Canmin, vice mayor of Xiamen, said the tunnel is key to building a network of highways to improve logistics in the region, a focus of Taiwanese investment over the past three decades.
Xiamen was one of the first special economic zones China set up in the late 1970s and early 1980s to test market-oriented economic reforms. Business used to be centered in the city’s downtown island but has gradually expanded to its mainland districts.
The Chinese mainland’s first undersea tunnel, linking downtown Xiamen with the city’s mainland Xiang’an District, opened to traffic in April 2010.
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