Construction of the six-lane bridge, which will allow a speed of 100 km per hour, started on Nov. 14, 2003 and was completed on June 26, 2007.

A waste water disposal plant with a daily capacity of 270,000 tons has been built near the bridge in Jiaxing to collect and treat waste water from neighboring areas.

"Taking environmental protection into account, the top priority for us is to prevent the Hangzhou Bay water from being polluted," said Qiu Dongyao, Jiaxing executive vice mayor.

As a shortcut between Zhejiang and Shanghai, the bridge is expected to greatly alleviate traffic flow in the booming Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo triangle.

It will also help boost economic integration and development in the Yangtze River Delta, which covers almost 100,000 square kilometers of land comprising Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu. It is home to 72.4 million people.

"I think it will be easier for our company to recruit high-caliber employees in the future, who always prefer working in small cities like Cixi but living in big cities like Shanghai," said Sun Ningwei, vice president of the Xinhai Electric Co. Ltd. based in Cixi, Ningbo.