Italy can make dreams come true when all row together - premier

Premier Matteo Renzi said Friday that Milan Expo 2015 was a chance for Italy to show the world it has a great future ahead of it. "We have to present Italy as a land that does not just have a past, but also has a future," Renzi said during a visit to the World Fair worksite.

"It's a marvellous challenge. When we row in the same direction in Italy, dreams come true. This is the final rush and so let's show what Italy is capable of". He added that he considered the Expo site a "secular cathedral".

Renzi said Italy will successfully host Milan Expo 2015, albeit with a rush in the final stage of preparations. "We'll do it, it's in our DNA, running till the end," Renzi said during a visit to the worksite of the six-month World Fair, which opens in May. The premier said he was astounded by the progress that has been made since his last visit to the site. "Seeing it again after six months makes your heart jump".

Renzi said Friday that he was confident every Italian family would visit Milan Expo 2015 and that some 10 million tickets would be sold for the World Fair in the host nation. "No Italian family won't come to Expo," Renzi said during a visit to the Expo worksite. "Three million tickets have been sold in our country and in the end it'll be 10 million". He also revendicated his decision to press ahead with Expo last year, when there calls from some quarters for it to be called off when the event was hit by a corruption probe. "Expo was a scene of scandal and people were afraid," Renzi said.

"But that leaf has been turned. Milan and Lombardy are not playing this match on their own, it concerns the whole of Italy".