Having secured an extra $1.1 billion (HK$8.8b) to cover a 54% hike in the project budget, the Hong Kong government on June 12 announced two design-build contract awards together worth nearly $3 billion for the territory's share of the 30-km-long fixed link to Macao. Two teams of Chinese and European firms will build a 9.4-km-long viaduct and a linked 2.6-km tunnel on reclaimed land. Together the components will form the Hong Kong Link Road.
Local subsidiaries and Paris-based Bouygues Construction S.A. and China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd. secured a roughly $1.7-billion (HK12.9b) agreement to design and build the viaduct from Scenic Hill, on Hong Kong's airport island, to the boundary with the main Hong Kong-Zhuhai–Macao link, being procured separately on the mainland. The 54-month viaduct contract is said to be the territory's biggest ever design/build deal.