STORY: Over 3 mln vehicles pass through Croatia's Peljesac Bridge since inauguration
DATELINE: Sept. 17, 2023
LENGTH: 0:01:46
LOCATION: Zagreb
CATEGORY: SOCIETY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the Peljesac Bridge
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): SLAVISA BABIC, Head of Traffic Department of Croatia Roads
3. various of the bridge
4. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): SLAVISA BABIC, Head of Traffic Department of Croatia Roads
5. various of tourists taking pictures at the bridge

STORYLINE:

Over 3 million vehicles have passed through Croatia's Peljesac Bridge since it opened to traffic on July 26 last year.

The bridge is the largest infrastructure project in the country undertaken by a Chinese consortium.

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): SLAVISA BABIC, Head of Traffic Department of Croatia Roads
"I'm proud to announce that on September 12 we had a third millionth vehicle, which means that we are now past three million vehicles since we started to use the Peljesac Bridge, which was (opened) at the end of July last year. So in about a year we have more than 3 million vehicles. Daily average is about 7,000 vehicles."

The 2.4-km cable-stayed bridge connects Croatian mainland and the Peljesac Peninsula, greatly facilitating mobility of people and goods.

SOUNDBITE 2 (English): SLAVISA BABIC, Head of Traffic Department of Croatia Roads
"The southern part of Croatia is now easier to access and we have a lot more tourists coming to those parts of Croatia by car, because those destinations were more used by tourists by airplanes and air travel. We have a lot of heavy good vehicles passing over the Peljesac Bridge and it is much easier, because those heavy good vehicles had to pass borders with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Now they don't have to pass border and they are not losing time for border crossing."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Zagreb.
(XHTV)