Interview: Italian official eyes fostering food exports to China

With Italy hosting Expo Milano 2015, Italian Deputy Minister for Economic Development has an eye on fostering China-Italy food trade, given China's strong emphasis on cultural food tradition at it's three Expo pavilions.

"It's important that the Expo attracts the Chinese public," Carlo Calenda said during an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

Calenda said he sees China as a very important potential market.

"We are at the beginning, we export more or less 70 million euros of wine and we have an immense potential growth," he said about the countries' trade partnership.

In 2013, the Italian agri-food exports to China registered a total growth of 38 percent while the export of animal products grew 156 percent, and fats, vegetable, or animal oils grew 46 percent.

Calenda speculated that after the expo, Italian agro-food products would have a "preferential" line in China.

"We are investing a lot abroad thanks to 'Plan for the Made in Italy,' supported by the government, which has the goal by 2020 to reach the quota of 50 billion euros (about 56 billion U.S. dollars). We are convinced that, among all sectors, the agro-food will have the best growth performance. In this context, China is obviously a top priority," Calenda said.

The Deputy Minister was recently in Beijing and Shanghai for the Intertextile fair. Endit