Businesses will benefit from world's longest sea-crossing bridge

World
Europe

02:02

Measuring 55 kilometers long, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) is the world's longest sea-crossing bridge. It will be opened for traffic on Wednesday.

“I think the bridge is a really key piece of infrastructure that is opening up new commercial opportunities both within the Hong Kong to Macao, and within the wide Greater Bay Area,” said Stephen Phillips, director general of Invest Hong Kong.

The opening of the bridge will significantly shorten the travel time within the Greater Bay Area.

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Before the opening of the bridge, by road travel from Hong Kong to Zhuhai, it would take around three hours, and the commuting between Hong Kong and Macao relies mainly on slow and weather-dependent ferry transport.

With the bridge, it is expected to cut the travel time between either of the two cities down to less than an hour.

“It's a really exciting time commercially to see this region opening up, connecting the 11 cities in Greater Bay Area, able to be within roughly one hour traveling from each other,” said Phillips.

The bridge is also supplemented by the high-speed rail link from Hong Kong to Shenzhen and to Guangzhou, and then connecting with high-speed rail that runs across the country.

Now it will open up a great number of commercial opportunities and businesses will benefit from the world's longest sea-crossing bridge.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge /VCG Photo

“It is catching the imagination of the companies we are taking to around the world in a way that is incredibly exciting,” said Phillips.

With a combined population of around 70 million and an economy of over one-and-a-half trillion US dollars, it is one of the most economically vibrant regions in the world. It's a very significant market already, but it also got some phenomenal ingredients.

"You've got the traditional strengths of Hong Kong with international financial services center, you've got the innovation taking place in Shenzhen and wider Guangdong and Hong Kong's owns plans around innovation, it's really going to make this part of the world I think one of the fast-growing clusters at a global level,” Phillips added.

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