Messina Bridge to cost 13.5 bn euro

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 26 - The planned bridge across the Messina strait between Sicily and mainland Italy will have an updated cost of 13.5 billion euro, the head of the project company Stretto di Messina SpA said Tuesday.
    "The figure we have discussed so far is 12 billion, which however did not include the updates required by law", said the CEO of Stretto di Messina, Pietro Ciucci, on the sidelines of a Unioncamere conference on the Strait Bridge.
    "We believe that 13.5 billion is the updated value and we are defining the agreements with all the different contractors, we are evaluating the requests presented by the various bodies and Service Conferences and it is a phase that will be concluded soon", Ciucci said.
    "Therefore we believe that 13.5 billion is the updated value to aim for".
    Transport Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini, the bridge's latest and curret champion, said earlier this month that the construction of what would be the world's longest suspension bridge would be the biggest anti-mafia operation imaginable, after criticism of possible Mob infiltration.
    "It will create more than 100,000 jobs according to the company's estimates and will be the largest anti-mafia operation," the League leader said at a conference on the project.
    "Because someone says: don't build the bridge in Sicily and Calabria because there is the Mafia and the 'Ndrangheta'. It's crazy. The mafia thrives where there is desperation, where young people have no future and no work. The bridge will bring work, wealth, beauty, will save tons of CO2 in the air, so it will be one of the greenest bridges in the world".
    The bridge is currently scheduled to come into use in the early 2030s.
    The project, which was first championed by late three-time ex-premier and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, has been delayed due to its high cost, environmental concerns, and fears of mafia infiltration on both sides of the Strait, by 'Ndrangheta in Calabria and Cosa Nostra in Sicily.
    Salvini, has said construction sites will open by the end of the year and it will take seven years to complete the bridge.
    It will span over two miles, or 3.2 km, and become by far the world's longest suspension bridge.
    Currently, the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey holds the record with a span of 2,023 metres (6,637 ft).
    The project has been tweaked several times, most recently to raise its height so that cruise ships can pass underneath.
    (ANSA).