MILAN, April 24, 2020 – An infrastructure investment plan as a way to boost economic growth, with the Genoa Bridge that the Salini Impregilo Group (Webuild) is building as a model to follow, and a programme for Phase 2 that would deploy measures to unblock public works that have already been identified to create employment. In an interview on the nightly current affairs show Porta a Porta broadcast on RAI 1 public television, Group Chief Executive Pietro Salini described his vision of the recovery for Italy, underlying how the country could quickly activate projects already identified and often times approved.

“Today there is a lot of talk about the Genoa Bridge, a project that we have done with a great sense of civic duty but that we should not consider to be a miracle nor something exceptional. We should focus on investments that immediately create production and employment across the country. We have before us a great opportunity to do what the Marshall Plan achieved after the war,” Salini said. “There is always talk of a lack of resources to build infrastructure in Italy, but they are not what is lacking: we have €28 billion from the Cohesion Fund that are ready to be spent. We propose to use them for public works that have already been approved: there are projects that have already been planned, and some of them that are ready to be executed, ready to start in 2020-2021 for a combined value of €27 billion. They would also create an estimated 39,000 jobs. In recent years, we have spent only €5 billion out of a total of 30 that are available. It is very important to spend the remaining amount by 2022 to avoid losing these resources. Italy is one of the countries that invests the least in infrastructure: only 2% of the Gross Domestic Product is invested in infrastructure even though they are projects that improve the lives of its citizens. Compare that with China at 8.3% and 5.6% for India.”

“In Genoa, the institutions have done a great job, and the Commissioner used ordinary procedures, not extraordinary ones, behaving like a manager and doing what the client should do: take decisions that facilitate the construction of the project. In this way we have created a model that had the entire system row in our direction, to let work those who have the skills and, in the case of the bridge, also the heart to do it: the companies in charge of the project. We want to go back to work to build projects in Italy. We want to bring back the expertise of our people to serve the country to make it grow after this emergency. Let’s apply the Genova Model to projects ready to go, such as the Padova–Verona high-speed railway, stalled for years, or the Genoa-Milan high-speed railway, a project that dates back to 1992. Let’s immediately use the resources that are already available for projects that are ready to restart with production and employment, seizing the opportunity to push for change in Italy. Let’s transform investments in infrastructure into a long-term strategy that represents an opportunity to make our economy grow,” Salini said.