31ST MARCH 2005; THE NEW MILAN FAIR COMPLEX IS OPENED
The President of the Council Silvio Berlusconi and the President of the Lombardy Region Roberto Formigoni at the opening ceremony of the New Milan Fair Complex.
Rho-Pero, 30th March 2005- Tomorrow, Thursday 31st March at 11:00 in perfect harmony with the schedule announced for laying of the first brick on the site, which took place on 6 th October 2002, the New Milan Fair Complex will be opened. The ceremony will be held in the presence of the President of the Council Silvio Berlusconi, the Minister of Infrastructures and Transport Pietro Lunardi, the President of the Lombardy Region, Roberto Formigoni, the President of the Province of Milan, Filippo Penati, the Mayors from the Cities of Milan, Pero and Rho, Gabriele Albertini, Augustangela Fioroni and Paola Pessina. The President of Fondazione Fiera Milano, Luigi Roth, will guide the events. The archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, will conclude the ceremony with a solemn blessing of the new structure.
”It will be a very important day for the Complex, for Milan and for the whole country” Luigi Roth, president of the company in charge of the Milan Fair Complex, declared. “The New Fair Complex is an impressive structure that has redesigned the boundaries of the territory of the North-West area of Milan and will bring about important changes to its economy. The new structure will definitely increase the relapses of the activities of Fiera Milano throughout the territory, which can currently be evaluated in approximately 2 billion Euro per year.
”Our commitment in the last thirty months has led to the creation of an ambitious project which satisfies the requests of a strong international market which is constantly growing” states Claudio Artusi, Managing Director of Sviluppo Sistema Fiera, the company in charge of carrying out the New Milan Fair Complex project. “The New Fair Complex will strengthen all of the records already achieved by Fiera Milano in more than 80 years of activity”.
The new Rho-Pero Centre has been built using the method adopted by the General Contractor, used for the first time in Italy. It was created by a group of companies led by Astaldi, while the project itself was designed by the architect Massimiliano Fuksas who created the large glass and steel sail which has now become the symbol of the New Fair Complex. This structure has made Fiera Milano one of the most important exhibition centres in the world and has cost 750 million Euro (including the cost of the land) completely self-financed by Fondazione Fiera Milano"