Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and China's Premier Li Keqiang visited the Peljesac Bridge construction site in southern Croatia on Thursday, to symbolically press the button lowering the future bridge's central pylon.

The bridge, which is the largest major infrastructure project in Croatia in recent years, is being built by the state-backed China Bridge and Road Corporation (CRBC) and latest estimates say the bridge should be built by the summer of 2021.

“This is a project that literally holds strategic importance for Croatia, because it will connect the southern part of our country with the rest of Croatia’s mainland. So in a symbolic way this bridge will secure the unity of Croatia’s territory,” Plenkovic said during the ceremony.

The bridge is intended to circumvent a short coastal strip belonging to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina around the town of Neum, allowing road travellers to access the southernmost part of Croatia without passing through Bosnian customs and passport control. The four-lane bridge will be 2.4 kilometres long and 55 metres tall, making it one of the longest bridges in the region.

“In terms of construction, the Peljesac Bridge represents one of the most significant bridges built in Europe over the past few decades. It is worth mentioning that total weight of the bridge is 80,000 tonnes of steal, some of it underwater, and some of it above. This means that the bridge will have the weight of ten Eiffel Towers. This paints a clear picture showing the kind of project this is, as well as the capabilities of CRBC (China Road and Bridge Corporation) to install these pylons, which are one of the longest pylons in the history of bridge building anywhere in the world, each about 130 metres in length,” Plenkovic added on Thursday.

The €282 million contract for the bridge was signed with CRBC in April 2018, and the actual construction started in January this year. Some 85 percent of the construction cost will be financed by EU funding. It is the first major public tender in the EU won by a Chinese company.

Plenkovic and Li visited the construction site ahead of the 16+1 summit to be held in the nearby city of Dubrovnik on Friday, where Li is expected to meet with leaders of 16 Eastern European countries to discuss major infrastructure projects and Chinese investments in the region.

“The bridge is a pilot project for the 16+1 cooperation format and also for (future) cooperation between China and the European Union, because a Chinese company won this project through a public tender,” Li said.

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