The announcement about the 30 km long, US$ 4 billion project was made at the first meeting of the Western Pearl River Delta Regional Development Forum, in Zhuhai, involving officials from the two SARs and Guangdong. The bridge will take at least five years to build.
Ma Xiaohong, an official from the Hong Kong and Guangdong Co-operation and Co-ordination Department, said detailed plans for the structure were submitted to the central government in December last year. Ma added it would reduce the journey time from Hong Kong to Zhuhai to under 30 minutes, and even less from Macau to its neighbours. The road journey from Hong Kong to Zhuhai currently takes six hours, and has to go via Guangzhou.
One of the key arguments for the bridge is to boost the economy of the western delta, which has lagged behind the eastern zone. Zhuhai's gross domestic product totalled only 54.6 billion yuan (US$ 6.7 billion) in 2004, while Shenzhen topped 342.3 billion yuan (US$ 42.2 billion) in the same year.
But the financial viability of the bridge has been called in to question by a leading Guangdong academic, who fears it could become an expensive white elephant because of the Mainland's new high speed railway linking Guangzhou and Zhuhai.
The rail route is expected to be ready several years before the bridge, and will allow cargo from Zhuhai and inland China to be sent directly to Hong Kong entrepreneur Li Ka-shing's new deep water port at Gaolan for export across the world.
This would be a quicker and cheaper way of shipping goods than sending them by road via Zhuhai and Macau for loading on board ships in Hong Kong, says Professor Zheng Tianxiang of Sun Yat-sen University.
Construction on the Guangzhou to Zhuhai section of railway will start again in March. It's the final link in a project running almost the entire length of China, from Beijing on the edge of the Mongolian plains, to the Pearl River Delta on the edge of the Pacific. The final stretch had been delayed for six years because of funding problems and political wrangles.
But it's perfect for Li. His Hutchison Delta Ports is building two terminals in Gaolan, each capable of handling 50,000-tonnes of cargo, on the strength of the rail project. There are plans to extend the port facility with an extra three to four 100,000-tonne terminals. Professor Zheng says Hong Kong is now paying the penalty for failing to invest enough money in rail transport because of political lobbying by taxi operators. The link may however stimulate the Zhuhai economy. Foreign investment in the city rose 27.5 per cent last year and total investment grew by 37.5 per cent. The rail project was revived in 2004 with strong support from the Guangdong government, which offered jointly to finance the 4.58 billion yuan (US$ 567.92 million) project with the Ministry of Railways. The Guangdong section of the rail link is 132.7km long and will pass through Foshan, Nanhai, Shunde, Heshan, Jiangmen, Xinhui and Doumen, and terminate in Gaolan, with six stations along its length. It has been designed to allow trains to travel at 120km per hour

High Rolling Heritage
The Government has declared 2006 'Macau World Heritage Year' in an effort to chase high-spending tourists and capitalise on UNESCO's listing of the old city as an internationally important site.
Chui Sai-on, Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, says the SAR will spend HK$ 30 million on promoting the branding, adding a task force has been set up by the Commission for Tourism Development to help market the city's historic legacy.
Macau is especially keen to attract cultural tourists as the authorities believe they will spend more money on goods and services than current visitors.
Although Macau received 18.7 million tourists last year, most of them were low-spending day trippers from the Mainland. Only 3.7 million of all the visitors recorded in the 11 months to November actually stayed overnight in the territory's hotels. The majority of those – 90.7 per cent – were in budget three-star accommodation, according to figures from the Government's Statistics and Census Service.
And although total visitor numbers were up 12 per cent compared with 2004, hotel stays to the end of November showed a a year on year growth of only 3.7 per cent.
Macau has also stepped up its international promotion in an effort to move up market. It recently opened an information office on the US east coast to add to one on the west coast, and it has a new bureau in France. The Government also hopes events such as last year's 4th East Asian Games and the Pacific Asia Travel Association Annual Conference will help to raise the territory's profile.
But Mainland visitors still make up the bulk of the tourists, with 10.46 million visits last year, equal to 56 per cent of all arrivals. Many of them come under the new relaxed rules for PRC residents known as the Individual Travel Scheme. Hong Kong residents made up 30 per cent of visitors, with people from Taiwan and other territories making up the rest.