MILAN, July 6, 2021 – “We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel: the global economy is starting to recover from the pandemic, so we are looking at the future with confidence. The priority for governments must be to re-establish confidence to relaunch the economy – also through infrastructure that creates jobs quickly and puts to good use private savings that are today left idle in bank accounts for a total exceeding €1,800 billion. This confidence in the future must be given today by starting again to plan, design and build large, sustainable infrastructure that can lead growth,” said Pietro Salini, Chief Executive of Webuild during “Accelerating Sustainable and Inclusive Growth” organised by the B20 Finance & Infrastructure Task Force as part of “B20-G20 Dialogue on Finance & Infrastructure”.

In order to recover from the global crisis, immediate and concrete measures are needed to create employment and foster a collaborative approach between clients and construction companies to plan and build infrastructure in a quick and effective way, in the same way that the Genoa Bridge was built. A long-term vision is necessary, a new paradigm to breach the enormous infrastructure gap that exists in high-income countries as much as it does in low- and medium-income countries. By breaching this gap, jobs can be created in domestic markets and help manage important questions like emigration. In a post-COVID world, spending on infrastructure is an effective instrument for a quick, sustainable and long-lasting economic recovery - and collaboration between the public and private sectors is more important than ever.

The B20 is a business summit organised by Confindustria with the aim of defining with the entrepreneurial community recommendations and policies to follow at the next G20 Business Summit.

Yesterday’s event in which Pietro Salini participated in his capacity as member of the B20’s Advisory Board was an opportunity to convey to the G20 recommendations on actions that are necessary to ensure an effective response to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as define a framework to accelerate inclusive and sustainable growth. On behalf of the G20 Presidency, other participants included Italian Minister for Economy and Finance Daniele Franco. The B20 was represented by the Chair, Emma Marcegaglia, the Chair of the Task Force Finance & Infrastructure, Carlo Messina, Chief Executive of Intesa Sanpaolo, and by Co-Chairs of the Task Force, representatives of the Network Partners, and a select number of Italian and foreign chief executives who are members of the Advisory Board.