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Bridge underlies Sino-Mali Co-op

By Li Xing (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-02-13 18:05

Thousands of people cheered and banged drums in Bamako on Friday as President Hu Jintao and his Malian counterpart Amadou Toumani Toure laid the foundation stone for the city's third China-funded bridge across the Niger River.

"The bridge represents a new level of cooperation between China and Mali," Hu said at the laying ceremony.

"Although we haven't given a name to the bridge, today we can officially name it Bridge of Malian-Chinese Friendship," Toure said.

"The third bridge will be very good for us," Nene Rokiatou Thiam, an employee of Hotel L'Amitie, said.

Toure talked with Hu about Bamako's need for a third crossing during their meeting three years ago at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the Malian president said on Friday.

In 2007, Toure was told that China was willing to finance the bridge, and soon after teams of Chinese and Malian engineers began working on its design.

About 40 Chinese engineers and technical workers arrived in Bamako three months ago to start construction.

China hopes to build a "top-level" bridge and "a new bridge of friendship", Hu said.

The structure, about 10 km from downtown Bamako, will be almost 2.3 km long and 24 m wide and carry four traffic lanes, Ma Jiangquan, deputy engineer general of the No 2 Co of the China Gezhouba Group International, which is building it, said.

The project will cost almost 346 million yuan ($51 million).

The firm plans to send about 70 managers, engineers and technicians to work on the it, as well as employing between 500 and 1,000 local workers.