Sino-Italian consortium to design Venice Offshore Port

The Venice Port Authority signed a contract on the design of Phase 1 of Venice Offshore Port with 4C3, a consortium made up of China Communications Construction Co Ltd (CCCC) and two Italian companies 3Ti Progetti Italia and E-Ambiente, on Feb 3, Xinhua reports.

According to the contract, the consortium will deliver the container terminal’s design proposal with building information modeling (BIM) technology. The contract value is €2.96 million (US$3.19 million) and the contract period is set at 10 months.

The Mayor of Venice Luigi Brugnar attended the signing ceremony, saying that the city government plans to transform the Port of Venice into the largest in the Adriatic Sea, and the important project needs competitive Chinese enterprises’ active participation.

Brugnar said that successful signing of the contract shows Venice became an important region in Italy's economic and trade ties with China again.

The consortium stood out in the tender with the highest scores in both technical and commercial bids.

Song Debin, vice-general-manager of the overseas market development department of CCCC, said, "The CCCC will be responsive to the client's requirements, allocate good resources, cooperate with local partners closely and strive to provide a quality design plan."

Paolo Costa, president of the Venice Port Authority, said that the Chinese partner has a clear design plan and highly satisfies the port authority's needs.

Costa said that the design and construction of the Port of Venice has always been a difficult problem, and signing of the contract turns the difficult problem into a rare development opportunity.

Costa noted that construction of the port not only benefits Italy and Europe, but will become a model of mutual beneficial cooperation between Italy and China.

A 20-meter deep offshore port will be built in the sea area 15 kilometers away from the Malamocco Port. The offshore terminal project will be able to handle large container ships holding 18,000 to 22,000 TEUs. The Port of Venice’s annual container handling capacity will be increased from 800,000 TEUs to 1.8 million TEUs .

CCCC, a Global 500 company, mainly engages in infrastructure construction in ports, shipping lanes, roads, bridges, railways, tunnels and municipal infrastructure, and has projects in more than 120 countries and regions.

Song said the new offshore deep-water port can improve the capacity of the Port of Veniceas well as the city's competitiveness, and building the port 15 km away from the mouth of the Venice lagoon will minimize its environmental impact on the city and its ancient buildings.

Song attributes 4C3's winning the bid to the company's advanced technology and rich experience in the industry. According to the Lloyd’s List of the World's Busiest Container Ports 2016, seven out of the world's ten largest ports by container volume are located in China. All of them were designed and built by CCCC.