TOP Shenzhen officials said the city will spare no efforts to finish the remaining projects for the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Western Corridor by the end of the year after the two cities' carriageway sections were joined over the Shenzhen Bay on Friday.

Li Hongzhong, secretary of the municipal committee of the CPC, declared the sections had been linked at a Friday ceremony.

Shenzhen Mayor Xu Zongheng and Hong Kong's Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao also attended the ceremony. The sections, which were built separately by the cities, were connected at 10:30 a.m.

The bridge is a 5.5-kilometer, two-way three-lane carriageway from Dongjiaotou, Shekou, Shenzhen to Ngau Hom Shek in northwestern Hong Kong. Due to open later this year, it will shorten the journey from Shekou to Hong Kong's Route 3 to 20 minutes.

Xu said a 4.47-kilometer linkup passage which will connect the corridor with Yueliangwan Thoroughfare will be completed by the end of the year. About 35 percent of the project has been finished. A 3.09-kilometer section of the linkup passage will be built below the ground, the longest underground highway on the Chinese mainland.

Liao said the corridor - the fourth border crossing between the cities for vehicles - will help promote prosperity in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. "It'll bring about important and long-term economic benefits to both," she said.

The Western Corridor will be the two cities' first cross-border infrastructure to have one-stop customs and immigration clearance.

The other three land crossings on the Shenzhen side are Huanggang, Wenjindu and Shatoujiao.

Three new cross-border bridges at the Huanggang, Luohu and Shatoujiao checkpoints were opened last year.

The three bridges are among the five cross-border infrastructure projects scheduled to be finished before the end of 2006. The other two are the Western Corridor and the Futian Checkpoint footbridge, part of a project to link the Shenzhen Metro with Hong Kong's Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR).

Editor: Yan