MILAN, April 24, 2020 – An investment plan for big infrastructure projects to relaunch growth and employment, starting with measures in the health sector and the maintenance and repair of infrastructure in Italy, and unblocking public works that are ready to be developed during the 2020-2021 period for a combined value of €27 billion. In an interview on the Il Mix delle Cinque hosted by Giovanni Minoli on RAI Radio 1, Pietro Salini, Chief Executive of the Salini Impregilo Group (Webuild), spoke of his vision of Italy’s recovery, underlining how working in safety on construction sites was possible, as had been shown on sites in Italy and elsewhere in the world. “With the COVID emergency, we have reorganised our activities and we remain operative on work sites like the Genoa Bridge, which is doing the final sprint to complete the piece of infrastructure after only 10 months since the pouring of concrete for the first pier. Since the first signs of the emergency of the coronavirus infection appeared, Salini Impregilo went into action on two fronts: guaranteeing the health and safety of its people, with a task force of more than 500 people throughout the world; and guaranteeing business continuity for clients.” Salini added: “Today we have to focus on investments that create production and employment. This year 10% of the Italian GDP will be burnt and we have to defend what we have. There is always talk of a lack of resources, but they are not what is missing: today we have €28 billion from the Cohesion Fund that are immediately available. This is real cash. We could use them now to restart infrastructure and create employment, which is the real emergency of this country. Europe is giving us a lot of resources, and I think that the Italian government in Europe has scored a goal and we are returning to a winning idea of a supportive Europe.”

Salini went further to propose an investment programme for the short to medium term. The plan starts with the health sector, the so-called “COVID Hospitals”. “We are proposing to invest in the creation of 10,000 beds in specialised hospitals to give the country a health system that is adequate and capable of responding to a situation that will arise in the coming months. A programme that would cost at least €1.5 billion.” At the same time, Salini spoke of a comprehensive plan to maintain and repair all of Italian infrastructure. “We want to create a maintenance and repair company that would be able to manage infrastructure maintenance across the country, many of which are obsolete, to create jobs and bring back in action an entire sector made up especially of small- and medium-sized companies, a sector that has been in a crisis for too long.”

This focus on Italy is reflected in Project Italia, the operation to consolidate infrastructure in the country promoted by Salini to create an international group that is more active on international markets: Webuild. “In Genoa, we did what was asked of us. We want to do more for our country, bringing back here our expertise that is recognised all over the world. It would be like what our competitors do: generate a lot of revenue in the domestic market,” he said. Public works, said Salini, should be seen as “the ambulance of the system that puts the sick in a condition to reach the hospital. And we should all consider this crisis as an opportunity to create a new way of collaborating between clients and construction companies, starting with the Genoa Model, which has shown to work very well. It has nothing to do with special powers to develop infrastructure but special people, who together have as an objective to build public works.”

Salini also commented on the approval of the proposal by the assembly of Astaldi creditors, which will quicken the process for Astaldi’s entry into the Webuild Group. “We are confident that this process will happen quickly. Everyone will benefit from it. In May, we will change our name to Webuild, a name that represents our DNA: what we do - we build. How we do it - with a great sense of team spirit.”