An alliance between Genoa and Beijing, between the port and the Chinese giant China Communication Construction Company (Cccc), to carry out some of the major works for the development of the Ligurian port, from the displacement of the breakwater to the expansion of the Fincantieri plant. There is also this dossier in the large suitcase that Chinese President Xi Jinping will bring with him to Italy from 21 to 24 March for his first state visit since he rose to the highest institutional office of the People’s Republic in March 2013, a few months later. the conquest of the Communist Party secretariat. It is no coincidence that the delegation of the Chinese president should also include Wang Jingchun , executive president of CCCC, and its general manager Changmiao Zha.
A few days ago it was the president of the Port Authority of Genoa and Savona, Paolo Signorini , who announced, during a conference of the Ligurian Confindustria, that work is underway “to build a new company in partnership with the Chinese group Cccc that will help us in procurement phases of some major works relating to the port of Genoa “. It was not an impromptu exit, given that the contacts have always existed and have intensified with a recent visit to Shanghai by the top management of the Port Authority, then reciprocated with a journey of exploration by the Chinese top managers in Genoa and Savona.
The Chinese group, born in 2005, from the merger of China Harbor Engineering Company (Chec) and China Road and Bridge Corporation (Crbc) is one of the big oriental construction companies, with a turnover in 2017 of 75 billion dollars, and is the number three in the world in the Engineering news ranking, record for international turnover: 23.1 billion dollars. The company is best known for the recently completed construction of the marine bridge linking China with Hong Kong and Macau. It is a 54.7 km long viaduct, the longest in the world. It was no coincidence that it also proposed for the construction of the new Morandi bridge then assigned to the Salini-Fincantieri consortium.
To understand the size of Cccc just think of a matryoshka: it has 34 subsidiaries, all obviously state-owned, with which it is engaged all over the world in the design and construction of transport infrastructures, dredging and supply of cranes. Just look at how it has moved in recent years, especially in Africa where it has built seaports, bridges, submarine tunnels, new cities, artificial islands and railways. Without forgetting that in Ethiopia it has built over 2500 km of motorway, enlarged the Addis-Ababa international airport and inaugurated a motorway bridge in Brazzaville, while in Gambia it has rebuilt the port of Banjul in Gambia and increased the port terminals in Kribi in Cameroon. .
And it is precisely on the ports that it has recently concentrated its core business. In Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, the Chinese group has been working for three years on the large project to enlarge the port area, with excavations to increase the surface area of ​​the entrance to the port and working on the creation of the twelfth terminal. And that’s what we would like to do in Genoa too.
In the project being studied by the president of the Port Authority of Genoa, there would be the construction of a new quay for the construction of cruise ships, now aimed only at Molfalcone, with an active role of Fincantieri which already has a maxi-order in place for the construction of ships for the Chinese market. A win win collaboration that has in mind the president Paolo Emilio Signorini, because a closer collaboration with Cccc means greater Chinese investments in the port and logistics and the relaunch of the Ligurian port as a terminal, together with Trieste, of that Silk Road so much opposed, for example by the Americans, but so strategic for the Italian companies.
