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the current Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge
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North Korea and China have agreed to build a new bridge across the Yalu River below the railway bridge connecting the two countries, an official from the Chinese border city of Dandong revealed Thursday.
"Because the current Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge is limited in its ability to cope with rising traffic, we need to build another bridge across the Yalu River,¡± the vice head of the Dandong Development and Reform Committee said during the first ever North-South Transport Forum in the city on Thursday. ¡°North Korea has also agreed," The official said. "The plan is being carried out not by Dandong but by the central government."
He said no concrete plans for the new bridge have been decided, ¡°but the location will be downstream from the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, between the towns of Anmin and Donggang." The bridge will have four to six lanes depending on the budget. The official named no specific figure but said South Korean help with financing could speed up construction.
China also revealed that it is carrying out a three-year project to lay some 1,400 km of railway tracks in the country's three northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, which would boost the traffic and freight-carrying capacity of the Chinese northeast and could promote trade between China and North Korea as well.
The new bridge and railroads are part of a central government plan to revitalize the county's northeast that began in 2003. The development plan, which earmarks about US$8 billion for 100 large construction projects, also includes plans to build oil and gas pipelines between China and Russia and expand roads.
Prof. Oh Seung-yeol of Hanguk University of Foreign Studies said China's infrastructure expansion plans seem aimed at not only making transport within China smoother, but also expanding trade between China and the Korean Peninsula and developing its largest border town Dandong into the transport hub of Northeast Asia. ¡°South Korea should set up something like a Shinuiju-Dandong special district committee and make active use of these Chinese policies," he added.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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