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River West. In March 2010, the Ministry of Transport of the Central People's Government approved the preliminary design of the HZMB Main Bridge. The governments of Guangdong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Macao Special Administrative Region established a 'Joint Works Committee of the Three Governments' in May 2010 to oversee the implementation of the HZMB project. In August, the three governments appointed the senior officials of the HZMB Authority which then formally came into operation. The HZMB Authority is responsible for co-ordinating the construction, operation, maintenance and management of the HZMB Main Bridge, and for implementing various policies of the Joint Works Committee of the Three Governments. In the second half of 2010, the HZMB Authority started inviting tenders for various design contracts and construction contracts related to the HZMB Main Bridge with a view to completing the HZMB Main Bridge project in 2016.

The Northern Link will connect the West Rail Line at Kam Sheung Road to the boundary crossing point at Lok Ma Chau. Together with the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line of the East Rail Line, the Northern Link will be a strategic corridor connecting the West Rail and East Rail lines in the Northern New Territories.

The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL) will reduce the rail travel time between Guangzhou and Hong Kong. It will also link Hong Kong to Beijing and other major Mainland cities via the Beijing-Guangzhou Passenger Line and the Hangzhou-Fuzhou-Shenzhen Passenger Line. It also will connect Hong Kong to cities in the Pan-Pearl River Delta region via the Rapid Transit System now under development in the Mainland. Construction of the Hong Kong section of XRL commenced in January 2010 for completion in 2015.

The proposed Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai Boundary Control Point (BCP), by connecting with the Eastern Corridor in Shenzhen, will provide efficient access to the eastern part of Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangxi Provinces via Shenzhen-Huizhou and Shenzhen-Shantou expressways. After the BCP is commissioned in 2018, it will significantly shorten the distance between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and the nearby provinces and greatly facilitate future regional co-operation and development. It will also help redistribute the cross-boundary traffic among the existing boundary crossings in the eastern part of the territories (Man Kam To and Sha Tau Kok BCPs).

Cross Boundary Ferries

Cross-boundary ferry services to about 13 Mainland ports and Macao are provided by nine operators at the Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal in Sheung Wan, the China Ferry Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui and the Tuen Mun Ferry Terminal. The number of cross-boundary travellers using these services to travel to and from Mainland ports totalled 4.5 million, and the number to and from Macao was 19.7 million in 2010.

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262 Transport