Turkey and Japan sign deal for road link

Turkey’s Otoyol Corporation and Japanese IHI-ITOCHU consortium yesterday signed an agreement to build the İzmit Gulf Suspension Bridge at a ceremony which was also attended by Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim in Istanbul. Speaking at the ceremony, Yildirim said that there were 40 shipbuilding yards nearby the bridge construction site and guaranteed to complete steel sections of the bridge in 15 months. Once the construction is completed, actual travel time around Izmit Bay will decrease from 70 minutes to six minutes. The total cost of the three-km bridge will be approximately 1.1 billion US dollars.