Croatia opens Chinese-built bridge around Bosnia amid celebrations

Jubilations were witnessed across Croatia after its long-awaited bridge linking its southern Adriatic coast with the rest of the country—as it bypassesa narrow strip of Bosnian territory—was opened for the public.

The 2.4-km cable-stayed bridge was funded by the European Unionand built by China, reports BBC.

The Croatian bridge contract was awarded to a Chinese state-owned company, The China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). It bid far less than its European rivals, prompting an Austrian company to file a complaint, alleging that CRBC was "price-dumping" and receiving Chinese state aid.

The bridge reaches out from the Croatian mainland to the Peljesac peninsula. The inauguration ceremony started Tuesday early morning, with musical performances and a boat race, while scores of pedestrians clocked selfies on the bridge.

“It is a major thing for people here since they did not even feel like they were living in their own country,” said Joso Miletic, 75, who travelled from his village near the city of Zadar, on the central coast, to watch the opening of the bridge, told AFP news agency. “This is the merging of Croatia into a whole.”

The bridge is regarded as the country’s most ambitious infrastructure projects since Croatia declared independence from Yugoslaviain 1991.

Until this bridge was conceived, people used to travel from mainland Croatia to its southern coast via a land belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The present arrangement of the border stems from the fact that when the former Yugoslavia broke up and Croatia became independent in 1991, the new borders of the Croatian coastline were split by a 9-km-long section of Bosnian coastline known as the Neum corridor.

Since Croatia is part of the EU and Bosnia is not, residents trying to travel between the two ends of the Croatian border had to go through two border checks.

But now anyone can drive straight along Croatia's Adriatic coast via the new bridge.

About 85 per cent of the cost of the bridge was funded by the EU, which spent €357m (£300m) using cohesion funds for what it said would improve significantly the everyday lives of Croatians, according to BBC.

(With inputs from agencies)

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