The Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) has handed over the site where a bridge will be built across the Cavalla River between Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire (formerly Ivory Coast).

Work on the 288m two-lane reinforced concrete cable-stay bridge will take 24 months. The bridge will close up a missing link in a trade corridor between Dakar in Senegal and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The Cavalla River marks the border between the two countries and the bridge site is at Prollo, in the south of Côte d’Ivoire.

The contractor for the project is Shaanxi Construction Engineering Group Corporation (SCEGC) of China, and the supervising consultant is AIM Consultants of Nigeria.

ECOWAS is a regional and political union of 15 countries in West Africa, which aims to create a trade bloc to raise standards of living and promote economic development.