THE P30-billion Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway (CCLEx), which is expected to ease the worsening traffic in Metro Cebu and help stimulate economic growth in the Visayas, is expected to be “substantially completed” in December, its developer said.

“CCLEx is expected to be substantially completed in December 2021,” Cebu Cordova Link Expressway Corp. (CCLEC) said in a statement posted on its official website.

CCLEC is a subsidiary company of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., the tollways arm of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC).

“As of January 2021, the overall engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract of CCLEx is at 68.21% while construction progress alone is at 59.68%,” the company said.

The company recently completed the concreting works for the project’s two main bridge pylons.

The 8.5-kilometer toll bridge project, which is expected to serve around 50,000 vehicles daily, will connect Cebu City with Cordova, in the south of Mactan Island.

The bridge was originally scheduled to open in March, in time for the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Christianity in the Philippines.

CCLEC President and General-Manager Allan G. Alfon told BusinessWorld in May last year that the company had to review the pandemic’s impact on the completion timeline.

MPIC is one of the three key Philippine units of Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being Philex Mining Corp. and PLDT, Inc. Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin

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