East China's Zhejiang Province will start building its second trans-oceanic bridge over Hangzhou Bay next year.

"The provincial government has approved the project, which is expected to be launched next year," Xu Wenguang, mayor of Shangyu, said at Wednesday's press conference.

The first trans-oceanic bridge began construction on June 8 to shorten the distance from Cixi in Ningbo to Zhapu in Jiaxing. The bridge is 36 kilometres long and costs at least 11.8 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion).

But the second bridge will only be 13.6 kilometres long on its major span that will link the expressway leading to Shangyu on the southern Hangzhou Bay to the expressway going to Haining in the city of Jiaxing on the north of the bay.

The investment, which will be raised by a combination of loans and business funding, is expected to exceed 6 billion yuan (US$720 million), said Xu.

He said: "The bridge will become another golden channel to connect Zhejiang's eastern part to Shanghai and southern Jiangsu Province."

It can shorten the distance from Shanghai to Shangyu by 100 kilometres to reach the destination within 90 minutes.

The bridge will have six lanes for vehicles travelling up to 100 kilometres per hour and is expected to be completed in 2008.

Local sources said the province wants to get closer to economically booming Shanghai.

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