THE new Yangtze River Tunnel-Bridge Expressway puts Chongming Island at our door and opens up unprecedented development opportunities. Victoria Fei pays the toll. For more than 1,300 years people have been taking ferries to and from Chongming Island, a trip that can take more than one and a half hours and can be inconvenient, though charming if you're not in a hurry.

Now the opening on October 31 of the Changjiang Tunnel-Bridge Expressway opens up the island for unprecedented - but environmentally conscious - development.

More than 100 senior officials from foreign companies in Shanghai recently visited the island via the tunnel-bridge. They were scouting opportunities in cooperation with the local government to boost to the ecological island's economy.

The investment visit was organized by the Shanghai Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment.

The 25.5-kilometer tunnel-bridge link is expected to energize the island's economy, tourism and infrastructure construction.

After exiting the 8.9-kilometer tunnel, the delegation first stopped at the Changxing Base of the Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co Ltd.

The manufacturing base covers 304 hectares and has 78 hectares of workshops and 4.7 kilometers of coastline.

Guan Tongxian, general manager of Zhenhua, says its 28,000 employees can supply 280 ship-to-shore gantry cranes and 470,000 tons of steel structures each year.

The foreign business people were impressed by the large capacity.

"The visit is very impressive, enlightening me on how our business can advance in the future," said Wang Xiaozhong, a senior official from GE China Technology Center.

"Chinese enterprises have made great progress in both management and technology. When cooperating with domestic companies, foreign enterprises should have a new idea about them - they are more innovative and competitive than before."

Having visited Chongming several times, Wang says more space is being given to foreign enterprises today than in the past.

For GE China, new energy, water processing and solar energy are potential areas of cooperation with the local government, Wang says.

"We hope to contribute more on to ecological construction of the island," he says.

Li Zhihong, vice director of Chongming County, says the current conditions for Changxing's development are equal to those offered by Pudong New Area in the 1990s.

"Changxing Island can be regarded as both the focus of industrial development in a new round and an extension of Pudong's development," Li says. "It will become a global manufacturing base for sure."

In the new era, Chongming is trying to develop a modern ecological island industrial system, in which environmental protection is prized.

The county is encouraging 11 industries to settle there, including ship building and ocean engineering equipment manufacturing, ecological food processing and new, clean and sustainable energy industries.

The delegation also visited Chenjia Town at the terminus of the tunnel-bridge construction on Chongming Island. The 320-year-old town has long been a dynamic town of merchants.

"Now it's easier to transport vegetables to the city's downtown area, benefiting both farmers and delivery companies. Farmers are encouraged to grow more vegetables as city dwellers want more fresh produce," says Liang Jun, deputy general manager of Chenjia Town Construction and Development Co Ltd.

"The bridge-tunnel is our economic life line. Inquires on investment have rocketed and we are getting numerous calls seeking advice."

Chenjia Town features a super-low-energy-consumption ecological demonstration building, which went into operation last month.

It uses natural ventilation, natural lighting, rain water collection, recycled building materials, a wind generator and solar power system, among other technologies.

"It is an experimental base to collect scientific research data," says Liang. "The local government is exploring energy-saving techniques that can be extended to the entire eastern area of Chonming Island."

By 2020, Chenjia Town is projected to have an urban population of 120,000. It will be built into an education, research and development area, an ecological agriculture demonstration area, green industry zone, international convention and business area and an outdoor sports area.

"I'm glad that senior officials of foreign enterprises show great interest in the town's development," says Liang. "Many friends living in the city downtown are thinking about buying houses here.

"It's more than investment. It's the pursuit of a more relaxed way of life."

More than 300 travel agents in the city have signed cooperation agreements with the county to promote tourism. Liang predicted a sharp increase in the number of restaurants, fruit stalls and vendors selling local food at Chengjia Town to meet tourist demand.

"The tunnel-bridge can be compared to any great bridge in the world. Chongming is a great a place to see natural beauty and enjoy life," says Chris Balls, general manager of Kodak Electronic Products (Shanghai) Ltd.

"It's my first visit to the county and it's a very interesting trip. Here I see the confidence of the local government to boost its economy, industry and environment."

Having lived in Shanghai for two years, Balls is very impressed by the Chongming government's emphasis on protecting the environment.

"The county is a big area and I hope to see continuous environmentally conscious development." About The Tunnel-Bridge The Changjiang Tunnel-Bridge Expressway complex opened to traffic on October 31.

It cost nearly 12.6 billion yuan (US$1.85 billion) to build.

The tunnel-bridge project goes by the Chinese name Changjiang for the Yangtze River.

It links Chongming Island to the Pudong New Area via the sparsely populated Changxing Island over a 25.5-kilometer toll expressway.

It has two segments: an 8.9-kilometer tunnel between Pudong and Changxing Island and a 10.3-kilometer bridge from Changxing to Chongming.

The new road connection will make life easier for the 700,000 people who live in Chongming County and for many downtown residents who visit for work and leisure.