Chinese firm wins Bangladesh contract

Dhaka - Bangladesh has awarded a Chinese company a contract to construct a river bridge connecting impoverished southern areas of the country with the capital, the government said on Wednesday.

China Major Bridge Engineering Company was tasked with building the more than 6 kilometer bridge - what would be the longest in Bangladesh - at a cost of more than 1.5 billion dollars.

It comes nearly two year after the World Bank scrapped a 1.2 billion dollar credit line it had granted the country for the project, citing corruption concerns.

The bridge will now be built using Bangladesh's own financial resources, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told parliament during her weekly question-and-answer session.

"We have given necessary allocation in the national budget to begin construction of the Padma bridge," Hasina said, adding that Bangladesh has enough financial reserves to fund the project.

"So, we do not need to beg for money from others, at this point," Hasina told lawmakers.

Construction on the bridge over the river Padma will be begin in July and should be open to traffic by 2018, she said. The government believes the bridge would help improve the economic conditions of people living in the southern part of the country.