Milan, May 18, 2021 - "Designing is the key word for Italy's future, so that the vision of Italy as we would like to be in 30 years' time becomes a reality. Italy has not planned in a structured way, for decades. And when it does, it does so through extremely extended times. Infrastructure must be revived through design activities.

Italy's growth priorities must be defined, using PNRR resources for works that are ready to start, creating jobs and restoring long-term strength to a strategic sector that represents the "Made in Italy" excellence". Webuild can boast a capital of 3,700 highly specialized engineers, architects, and technicians. In recent years, it has strengthened its design structure, currently employing some 700 people, with supply chain contracts, for an average annual value of €200 million".

These were Webuild CEO Pietro Salini's words at the 65th National Congress of the Italian Order of Engineers (CNI) - the Italian body of institutional representation for the relevant interests of the professional category of engineers. And not very long since Webuild's first entry into the OICE (Engineering Division), the Italian trade association, which represents the Italian engineering, architectural and technical-economic consultancy organizations adhering to Confindustria. "We wish to be a catalyst for the all-Italian engineering capacity of which Italy must be proud” continued Salini. “We must consider that infrastructural investments, a lifeline in an anti-cyclical perspective, are a unique accelerator for modernization purposes and sustainable development” underlined Salini. “We calculated a €190 billion plan of urgent actions that must be implemented for Italy's economic revival, starting from the mandatory infrastructures Some €94 billion’s worth of infrastructure are currently blocked in Italy, due to delays in planning, tenders, or disputes: Works that could immediately begin. If activated, in fact, they would provide work to over a million potential employees through interventions in the following areas: sustainable mobility, and the other urgent works concerning maintenance, water management, urban redevelopment, school building rehabilitation works and safety measures, and hospital and penitentiary buildings ".

“We must compare the PNRR resources to the 9,600 billion-GDP expected for the next 6 years. Against which the PNRR resources amount to approximately 2.5% of the GDP: i.e. what we spent before the crisis. We are in an emergency. And we must therefore use emergency tools to relaunch our country. The PNRR is a very important tool but represents just one aspect of a plan that must necessarily be much broader. The infrastructure included in the PNRR also concern works already in progress. We must still think of tools that are able to create additional employment, providing a real sprint to the economy, generating new trust, and a related reactivate demand.” concluded Salini.

Webuild’s growth culminated in 2020, with Progetto Italia, the industrial operation that allowed the integration of Astaldi in Webuild. And one of the most important developments in recent years concerned the Group's internal engineering division, engineering being among the Group’s strategic activities, to which the success of each project is most closely linked. In the last 10 years, the Group has, in fact, developed a solid corporate engineering structure made of technicians and professionals, with experience acquired both in highly complex project sites and in global engineering companies of primary importance, and capable of covering all specializations (structural, geological, geotechnical, hydraulics, underground works, maritime works, plant engineering, and railway systems). A corporate o organization, therefore, from which the structures responsible for design development activities in the various construction sites, and for supervising and offering technical assistance to the production units, during the execution of the works, were subsequently also developed.

Webuild's design activities concern the following business areas: sustainable mobility (63%); dams and hydro power generation plants (21%); green buildings (i.e. airports, stadiums, hospitals, civil and industrial buildings) and hydraulic projects and clean water (5%). And the remaining engineering fields, like maritime works (11%). Among some of the works designed by the Group there’s: the Milan - Genoa, Naples-Bari and Verona-Padua high-speed railways, the Brenner Base Tunnel, Milan’s M4, and Rome’s Metro C (Italy), Doha’s metro in Qatar, and Riyadh’s metro in Saudi Arabia, the Gerald Desmond Bridge in California and the Al Bayt Stadium, in Qatar.