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Text: Jiang Qingtong
Editor|Jiang Qingtong
[Preface]
As a world-famous "infrastructure maniac", China has built infrastructure for many countries, including a country called Mozambique, which is a very typical example.
The Maputo Bridge, built by the mainland for the country, has changed the fate of a city and given hope to the local population, and now it has become a local landmark, standing somewhere in a corner of Mozambique.
So why is this bridge so important to Mozambique, and why is it said that its construction changed the fate of a city?
【Background of the construction of the Maputo Bridge】
First of all, we need to understand an important point, that is, Mozambique is a typical African country, this country is mainly agricultural, historically Mozambique, is a very poor country, even the United Nations considers the country to be the least developed in the world, and has a heavy debt.
However, since the regime was stabilized in 1992, the government began to invest a lot of money and energy to adjust the economic structure and improve the investment environment, which has improved the living standards of residents to a certain extent and promoted the country's economic development.
In recent years, Mozambique's economic development has been relatively stable, until 2016, due to the international economic environment, as well as the slowdown in the development of domestic resources and other factors, the country's economic development was limited, but fortunately, the government found the problem in time, and formulated targeted policies, and obtained more positive results.
However, there is also a very obvious socio-economic problem within it, that is, the capital city of Maputo, the imbalance in the distribution of resources between the north and the south, the main reason for which is because of the Maputo Bay.
The city of Maputo is divided into two parts by Maputo Bay, the northern region is relatively economically developed, its population has increased to a certain extent, and now it is a large city with a population of more than 2 million, but there is a defect, road traffic is easy to cause congestion because of some small things.
Not to mention how big the gap between the economic development of the two regions is, we only need to pay attention to the urban construction of these two places, and we can clearly see the problem of uneven distribution of resources.
If we insist on a major reason for hindering the development of the southern region, it is, in the final analysis, Maputo Bay, whose existence has blocked cross-strait economic exchanges and widened the gap between the north and the south.
In fact, Maputo Bay is actually not very wide, the narrowest point is not even 700 meters, if it were in China, just this distance, just build a bridge to solve it.
But for Mozambique, infrastructure is a big problem to solve, because the local construction technology is too low to build bridges across the north and south coasts, even if it is only 700 meters away, and there is no talent and technical equipment to do so.
But if you want to cross the river by boat, you first have to wait at the pier for an hour or two before you can get to the boat, and if you have rush hour, the waiting time will be longer, about five or six hours.
Sometimes it doesn't have to wait, in this case, if you were a businessman who wanted to build a factory, would you build a factory in the southern region? If there was a shortage of materials, you would have to take a boat to the north shore to buy it.
Although it is only less than a kilometer away, it takes more than half a day, and to be honest, sometimes the finished products in the factory are shipped, and the raw materials may not be able to be delivered.
Because of this, there is hardly a businessman who is willing to invest in the south bank to build factories, so this area has been, unable to develop, the solution given by the government is to repair the bridge, they do not have the strength to build bridges, but they can find foreign aid.
There are two countries that are famous in the world for building bridges, one is India and the other is China, when it comes to India, everyone knows what they are famous for, and the bridges built by this country can be said to be the most powerful "tofu slag" project in the world.
As for China, it is naturally a positive example, all the infrastructure projects undertaken by China, none of them have had quality problems, and from the point of view of word-of-mouth strength, anyone with a discerning eye knows that the bridge should be built in that country.
【Bridge construction project undertaken by China】
As early as the last century, Mozambique had the idea of building the Maputo Bridge, but the strength did not allow it, and now with external assistance, the construction of the bridge has become an important project for the city of Maputo.
After careful consideration by the local government, the Mozambican president visited China in 2011 and formally signed a project agreement with China, which stipulates that China will provide the necessary economic loans for the construction of the bridge and the ring road in Maputo, and that the construction of the bridge will be carried out using the construction standards commonly used in China.
In fact, European and American countries have also built important infrastructure projects for African and other countries, but they have a very typical feature when they build.
That is, they don't pass on their skills to the local people, they take on the project, from the beginning of the construction of the senior leadership to use their own people, and the technicians use Indians, that is, they don't involve the local residents in the project.
As a result, even after the project is completed, the country does not have qualified technicians who can carry out subsequent maintenance and maintenance of the built infrastructure, and there is no ability to build bridges and roads, and even basic maintenance capabilities cannot be provided.
Unlike European and American countries, China likes to use local residents when building an infrastructure project, and when building the Maputo Bridge, China gave a hard and fast rule that every technician involved in the project should bring 6 to 7 local residents, treat them as their own apprentices, and teach them how to build bridges.
During the construction of the bridge, we employed more than 20,000 local residents and trained more than 5,000 skilled workers for the local area, and it is a great blessing for those local residents to have a skill to support themselves.
It was not until 2018 that the Maputo Bridge was officially completed, with a total length of 3,000 meters and a tower height of 147 meters, spanning 680 meters from the north and south banks.
Bridges of this condition abound in China, but here in Mozambique, it is the largest span suspension bridge in Africa, and on the day of the opening ceremony, even the president and his wife came to the scene, and basically all the heavyweight government figures came to witness the opening ceremony of the bridge.
For local residents, the successful construction of the Maputo Bridge means that their "dream" has come true.
【Importance for Mozambique】
From the perspective of Mozambique, the emergence of the Maputo Bridge has contributed to the economic development of the country, which not only promotes the economic development of the north and south regions of Maputo, but also balances the distribution of resources between the two banks.
In particular, during the construction of the bridge, thousands of technicians trained for the local area have become the backbone of Mozambique's follow-up infrastructure projects, and this cooperation between China and Mozambique has not only injected fresh blood into Mozambique's economic development, but also become a typical case of friendly diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The construction of the Maputo Bridge is of great strategic importance for Mozambique, not only to improve the social problem of traffic congestion in the region, but also to improve the economic flow between the north and the south, and promote the future development of all sectors of the country, while also improving the living conditions of the people in the southern region.
As long as this bridge exists, it means that the friendly and cooperative relations between China and Mozambique will not be easily changed, and in addition to the ties between countries, the friendship between the two peoples is also deepening day by day.
The reason for the deep friendship is also because of the Chinese rule that a Chinese skilled worker needs to lead several locals to learn the basic methods of building bridges.
In the process of mentoring, these people will naturally have subtle feelings, for them, a few years of getting along, not just a simple master-apprentice relationship, but more of a kind of friendship and partnership side by side.
Through in-depth exchanges between the peoples of the two countries, the progress and quality of the Maputo Bridge project have been ensured to a certain extent, and while promoting the local economy, a modern bridge and ring road have been successfully built.
The appearance of the Maputo Bridge has shortened the distance and time consumption between the people on both sides of the strait, which has shortened the journey of several hours to dozens of minutes, which will help attract more investors to build factories in the southern region and improve the speed of local social and economic development.
When the reporter interviewed local residents, they said that the establishment of the bridge has brought great transportation convenience, they can reach the other side of the river from the north bank to the south bank in only ten minutes, according to their own words, the bridge is currently about 4,000 cars a day.
【Conclusion】
In fact, China has built much more infrastructure for countries around the world, and this is just one of the concrete examples, such as the Maputo Bridge, which can be changed after construction, and the local economic development and living standards of infrastructure projects, the mainland has undertaken a lot.
However, few people have really understood that in order to let more people know China's contribution to the world, it is also hoped that China's status and influence in the international community can be greatly improved, so there is this article on China's infrastructure.
China's contribution to the rest of the world is obvious to all countries in any aspect, especially for those relatively poor developing countries, the mainland is doing its best to help them, and it can be said that China's desire for world peace and stability is the strongest country compared to European and American countries.
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