Webuild CEO Pietro Salini: Vaccination programme, infrastructure plan, liquidity for companies and investments in southern Italy to relaunch the Country

MILAN, March 25, 2021 - 'We need to start immediately the infrastructure projects that Italy needs - and find the resources to finance them. The Recovery Plan must be part of a wider infrastructure programme. If we consider it as the only source of spending for the sector, it would be recessive. It would be only €32 billion during six years. In normal times, the state budget would allocate during the same period about €90 billion,' Pietro Salini, Webuild Chief Executive, said during an interview with Sky Tg24, a television news channel.

First of all, Salini continued, we need to roll out quickly the vaccination programme to put the country in a condition to start again. '(For this reason) we have made ourselves available to lend support to the vaccination programme at our company by making our people and structures available. At the business level, we need to inject immediately liquidity into the system. Otherwise, the country will not start up again. Art. 207 of the Decreto Rilancio (Relaunch Decree) that foresees 30% advance cash payments to businesses of 30% must be made executable as soon as possible. On its 18 main projects, Webuild works with a supply chain of 7,000 businesses. We know well their cash difficulties. In the same way, we know well the difficulties posed by the lack of a mechanism to revise prices in contracts. In the last three months, iron has changed price two times. Businesses cannot adjust to the international price movements of raw materials. We need to protect them if we want to put them in a condition to operate and work for the country.'

It is an emergency that needs to be confronted at the national level - and it should not be limited to a revision of the building code. 'The current code has never worked,' said Salini. 'And we think that it would be very practical to use the European code. It is complete, defensive and effective. Adopted by many European countries without any changes done to it, it is a code that can also work in Italy. It would make us more European. It would be better than going ahead with new amendments to the (current) code.'

An extensive vaccination programme would help restart the country's production activities including businesses in the infrastructure sector, which have been penalised by having many projects getting blocked. Getting them to start again would represent a boost to the development of the economy and employment. Just like the bridge over the Strait of Messina. 'Webuild is today among the major players of the sector in the world, building strategic projects like the (second) Panama Canal, dams in Africa and the high-speed railway in Texas that the Group has been put in charge of planning and developing in the United States. The bridge would be an essential axis connecting Sicily. It would make more valuable the contribution that high-speed rail could bring to southern Italy. The development of southern Italy must be the government's priority. In a part of Italy with few projects and investment programmes, the bridge would provide an important boost in terms of employment. In six months, we could open work sites and put to work 100,000 people, directly and indirectly - people who would work to give a future to southern Italy. This link would be very important for the region and the country, and we are ready to do it.'