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Feature: Italy keen to increase economic cooperation with China in third countries

Xinhua, June 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

One crucial field in which the Sino-Italian relationship might develop further with mutual benefit is economic cooperation in third countries, representatives from Italy's economic and financial institutions recently said.

Economic ties between Italy and China have witnessed a positive growth in recent years, and could increase further in both trade and investment flows, as much as in tourism exchange.

Yet, a closer cooperation in third countries would also offer large opportunities of growth, and even more so because it is a still much-unexplored area compared to others, experts said.

According to Riccardo Monti, president of the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE), the joint work between Italy and China could profit most from combining China's financial power and Italy's know-how.

"China is currently a major sponsor in infrastructure projects (around the world). Therefore, it can be a crucial financial partner for Italian firms," Monti said at a conference on Sino-Italian financial cooperation held at ICE headquarters here on Thursday.

Infrastructures would be a key sector in which explore further this cooperation.

"China has a prominent presence in the whole Africa, for example. His role connected with Italy's remarkable engineering know-how and the presence of major Chinese civil construction companies can offer big opportunities," Monti stressed.

The country where Italy and China are currently trying to join forces is Egypt. A major infrastructure plan of the Egyptian government would in fact provide the construction of a high-speed railway connecting Alexandria, Cairo and Aswan. Egypt and Italy's governments signed an agreement concerning a potential rail construction plan in 2010.

Then, Egyptian and Chinese authorities signed a memorandum of understanding in late 2014, in which China agreed to carry out the design and final studies for the implementation of the high-speed rail project.

"Within this context, the Italian State Railways (FS) took part in an official mission in Beijing in early 2015 with the then Deputy Minister for the Economic Development Carlo Calenda," FS International Markets Head Giovanni Rocca told Xinhua at the conference.

"In that occasion, we met with the representatives of the China Harbor Engineering Company, involved in the Egyptian project, and both sides expressed a willingness to find a way to cooperate, given our common interests," said Rocca.

The FS' engineering company ITALFERR, had already carried out a pre-feasibility study about a high-speed railway between Alexandria and Cairo in 2009, the FS executive added.

The whole Alexandria-Cairo-Aswan high-speed project would exceed 10 billion euros (about 11 billion U.S. dollars), although only further feasibility studies will address its costs precisely.

Yet, why would China need Italy as a partner on such a project? According to the FS manager, an exchange between China's financial power and construction capability, and Italy's knowledge of both Egyptian railway network and Egyptian political landscape might be good for both.

"The Italian FS have worked in Egypt since 2008, following their restructuring railway plan closely with 10 of our managers living there up to 2014," Rocca said.

"Beside our own high level of technology and engineering, this field experience allowed us to be aware of the political balance in the country, which has gone through many changes in latest years," the businessman said.

"Considering all this, Italy could be of help for China to enter the Egyptian market, which is not an easy task. The Italian State Railways would be looking for a similar cooperation opportunity in Russia, where a major project would provide a high-speed railway connecting Moscow and Beijing," he said.

A contract to build the first 770-km-long portion between Moscow and Kazan was signed by a consortium of Russian-Chinese firms, Rocca explained.

"We are not well under way (in negotiations) in this case as we are in Egypt," he added.

"Yet, we would be a credible partner for China, both because we are internationally recognized leader in technology and engineering, and because of our relationship with the Russian railways established since 2006," Rocca believed. Endit