Dr. Herrenknecht visits the world‘s largest tunnel boring machines in Shanghai together with the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

Schwanau, May 31st, 2007. In Shanghai, two Herrenknecht Mixshields, the world’s largest tunnel boring machines with a diameter of 15.43m, are driving two giant road tunnels under the Yangtze River. The two tunnels with a total length of 7.4km are planned to connect  Changxing Island to Shanghai/Pudong road traffic. During his journey through Asia, the President of the Management Board of Herrenknecht AG Dr. Martin Herrenknecht  could recently show the construction progress of this superlative tunnelling project to the former German Chancellor Dr. Gerhard Schröder. Together with the representative of the client and overall project manager Mr. Huang Rong, Dr. Gerhard Schröder and Dr. Martin Herrenknecht visited the two TBM giants. The former Chancellor was deeply impressed by the quality of the construction and the machine performance. The first of the two Mixshields has driven more than 2 kilometers of tunnel under the Yangtze River since its launch in September 2006. The identical TBM, which started tunnelling in December 2006, has already completed one kilometer of tunnel. The project schedule is very ambitious.  Both tunnels are scheduled to be opened to traffic for World Expo 2010.
 
Between May 20th and 26th, 2007, Dr. Herrenknecht accompanied the Federal President of Germany Horst Köhler  and his wife during their official journey to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China as a delegation member. In Vietnam and, in particular, in the upcoming capital Hanoi, the demand for new efficient underground infrastructure for traffic and for supply and disposal systems for sewerage, water and energy is enourmous. In Vietnam, tunnelling technology made in Schwanau, Germany, is in demand in order to increase the mobility of people and goods and protect the environment and resources substantially.