Batang Baram Bridge (ASEAN Bridge)
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The Batang Baram Bridge or ASEAN Bridge is a bridge located along Miri-Baram Highway which directly links Sarawak with Brunei across the Batang Baram via the existing Immigration Checkpoint at Sungai Tujuh, which is the check point out of Sarawak and into Brunei. The bridge is a vital link between Sarawak & Brunei.
History
Previously Miri-Brunei travellers crossed the river by use of ferries near the Baram rivermouth. On particularly heavy traffic days such as holidays, two ferries would operate simultanously. The use of ferries to cross required waiting times and long queues of cars at the ferry points are extremely common. Incidentally, on the Brunei side there is also a river to cross, which required a ferry to operate as well, so Miri-Brunei travellers are hit with a double whammy of queues awating ferries that only carry 10 to 15 cars at a time.
Eventually, around the late 1990s a bridge had already been built at the Brunei Kuala Belait side of the border, and all the traffic that was by then heavily bottlenecked at the Baram River. Thus the people are left wanting a permanent solution to such problems and a need cross the river effectively.
The construction of the ASEAN bridge and its accompanying access road officially began on January 17th, 2001 and was completed in August of 2003.
Beginning 1st of June, 2015 tolls are no longer charged to drivers of Sarawak-registered vehicles.
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The first air conditioned shopping complex building in Miri, built up to more than 10 stories high, also a first.
Literally, Sungai Tujoh is translated as the Seventh River or Seventh Stream spelled in the form of Bruneian Malay language. An immigration post was built in the 1960s to control the movement of goods and people between Miri and points west in Sarawak with Brunei, at this "7th river".
'Commercial shipping' utilizing Miri as a port goes back to as early as when Miri was merely a fishing village. Being the site of the first discovery of oil in Borneo in 1910 quickened the business and pace and progress of Miri, establishing it an important and leading port for the majority of the 20th century in the region for oil and then timber industries.