Italy seeks better conditions for its companies in China

Beijing. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has traveled to China to boost cooperation with the world’s second-largest economy and balance trade ties, she told reporters on Tuesday, during a visit to polish ties after abandoning her Belt and Road plan.

On his first visit to China, which comes after Italy last year abandoned Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship initiative, Meloni said the euro zone’s third-largest economy wants to rebalance ties with Beijing.

“Today, Italian investment in China is about three times greater than Chinese investment in Italy,” Meloni said. “It is clear that we want to work to remove obstacles for our products to access the Chinese market.”

Asked what the right-wing government she has led since 2022 hopes to gain from her visit, Meloni replied that Italy was seeking to “strengthen our cooperation with a view to clearly rebalancing trade.”

Italy is strategically important to China, having previously taken on Beijing on its own. It could prove a moderating voice within the European Union as the bloc’s 27 members consider backing the Commission on tariffs on Chinese electric cars.

In 2019, Italy became the only member of all the industrialized democracies in the Group of Seven (the world’s seven largest economies, G7) to join Xi’s infrastructure investment plan, which aims to revive the ancient Silk Road trade route.

Although Rome eventually abandoned the programme last year – under pressure from the United States – it said it still wanted to develop its trade ties with the $18.6 trillion Asian giant.

“As I have said many times, we were the only nation among the great nations of Western Europe that was part of the Silk Road. But we were not the nation that traded best with China. Far from it,” Meloni told reporters the day after meeting Xi.

“There are other nations in Europe that have had a much larger volume of Chinese investment.”

During a meeting at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guest House on Monday, Meloni told Xi that Italy plays an important role in China’s relations with the European Union (EU), adding that he hopes for trade relations “as balanced as possible.”

EU members will vote in October on whether to impose further tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Italy is one of the countries that has indicated it will support the motion.