“I believe that Italy and China still have a long way to go together. And I think it’s up to us to pave the way. With determination, concreteness, and mutual respect.” Thus Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni concluded her speech at the Italy-China Business Forum underway in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
“Today more than ever, if we do not want to risk irreparably compromising peace and stability, we need, even in economic and trade relations, a shared strategy, based on decisions that do not harm each other and follow some basic principles”. This is the hope of Giorgia Meloni, who lists the principles to follow: “promote the ability to compete, making our economies and production and supply chains more resilient to shocks, more diversified, and able to generate technological innovations without losing manufacturing capacity”; “unleash the potential of the private sector, facilitate its healthy growth protected from distorting supports of competition”; “keep in mind the need for proportionality, to ensure that economic defense tools are also commensurate with the real level of risk and do not produce an involuntary compression of economic and commercial freedom, including international freedom, a principle – concludes the Prime Minister – which is the distinctive feature of a democracy and an open society like Italy”.
Electric car in industry agreement
The Memorandum of Industrial Cooperation signed today between Italy and China “now includes strategic industrial sectors such as electric mobility and renewables, sectors where China has been operating on the technological frontier for some time, which requires it to act as a fully developed economy, which it is, sharing the new frontiers of knowledge with its partners”, said the Prime Minister.
And Meloni does not hide the broader objective. “I am very happy to see representatives of authoritative Italian and Chinese entities gathered together. This broad participation demonstrates the intention to strengthen the Italy-China partnership and to discuss the strengths and weaknesses. The common objective is that our commercial relations are increasingly fair and advantageous for everyone”.
The dialogue between Italy and China and the “improvement of the conditions of access to the Chinese market” and the “protection of intellectual property” can “produce effects far more beneficial than we imagine”.
According to the Italian Prime Minister, China and Italy have room “to take their cooperation to new levels”. The Chinese Prime Minister then made a reference to the “spirit of the Silk Road” that would ensure “peace, cooperation and inclusiveness”. The two parties, he continued, “need to treat each other with sincerity and honesty”.