Wind barriers and cabling are among final structural touches to the 2.4km-long Pelješac Bridge that is set to open in June, according to Croatian media.
The four-lane cable-stayed bridge is around 23m wide stands 55m above the waters of the Bay of Mali Ston in the Adriatic Sea. Its pylons rise to 124m. The final steel span of the bridge was one of 165 such sections built for the infrastructure project by the China Rail and Bridge Corporation, CRBC.
Last July, the final section of the last span was installed. The bridge connects Croatia’s mainland at the town of Komarna with the town of Brijesta on the Pelješac peninsula, meaning vehicles will not need to travel through Bosnia and Hercegovina to access the Croatian territory.
Hrvatske Ceste, the state-owned company responsible for Croatia’s public roads, awarded the tender to China Road and Bridge Corporation in 2018 for a reported €420 million. But the Austrian firm Strabag and the consortium of the Italian company Astaldi and Turkey's IC Ictas Isaat Sanayi filed a complaint in Croatian courts against the selection of the CRBC, claiming the Chinese firm’s bid was too low to be sustainable. However, the complaint was turned down by the courts.
China Road and Bridge Corporation is part of the Chinese state-owned China Communications Construction Company. CCCC was formed through the merger of CRBC and China Harbour Engineering in 2005.
It is reportedly the first such project for a Chinese company within the European Union and is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to fund and construct major infrastructure between China through Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Europe.