Complementary industries boost Sino-Italian ties

Italian President Sergio Mattarella is on a state visit to China from Feb 21 to 26. China Daily recently talked with Italian Ambassador to China, Ettore Francesco Sequi, on the two nations' bilateral relations and his outlook on China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The Italian president is the one of the first foreign state leaders to officially visit China in 2017. Could you comment on it?

Embedded between Lunar New Year celebrations and the two sessions, this timing is an eloquent sign of the desire to bear witness at the highest level to the strengthening of our bilateral strategic partnership. Since 2015, all the highest Italian authorities have visited China once or twice.

The Italian foreign minister, minister of infrastructures and transportations and secretary of state for trade are part of the official delegation and will have important meetings with their Chinese counterparts. The Italian and Chinese business and academic communities will also play an important role in the visit.

A dozen of important institutional and commercial agreements have been signed on the margins of the official meetings.

I'm proud to say that we really celebrated the solidity and continuity of our partnership, with a view of the 50th anniversary of our diplomatic relations in 2020. We named this new path the "Road to 50", which sets the roadmap for our bilateral cooperation over the next five years, until 2020. It will also be the year when the current 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) will end.

The "Road to 50" supports more in-depth cooperation in key sectors where our two systems can complement each other. Italy's industrial technology can precisely meet the strategic priorities defined by the Chinese government from 2016-20: healthcare, agriculture and food safety, green economy and environmental technologies, aviation and aerospace and sustainable urbanization.

If a have to select a few words to summarize all this I would say "President Mattarella brings Italy to China opening the Road to 50".

In front of the backdrop of rising of anti-globalization and trade protectionism, what do you think about the mission of China's Belt and Road Initiative? How would Italy and China work with the strategy and what result can we look forward to?

Behind China's Belt and Road Initiative lies a truly remarkable vision. Italy fully recognizes its great potential, as we have already demonstrated by joining the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as founding member.

If you look at the map, you will immediately grasp the advantages of Italy's geographical position, which allows the country to act as a natural gateway to Europe and Africa for Chinese products.

Italy is well placed to join this project, which we view as a source of new opportunities in terms of investments, trade and ultimately growth. Italian ports, thanks to the implementation of the new National Strategic Plan of Harbours, can offer particularly favorable conditions. They are in fact multi-product ports, with modern infrastructure and logistical services and nonstop growth in traffic volumes.

For our government, it is a priority to maintain conditions for global trade to expand and sustain economic growth and development throughout the world. To this end, we acknowledge the importance of international cooperation in preserving fair policies and in promoting competitive dynamics.

The Italian president recently said Italy has played a very important role in promoting familiarity and understanding between China and Europe. We know that Macro Polo's travelogue introduced China to Europe, and that Matteo Ricci brought European thoughts to China. Is this romantic story still going? How do you comment on the role of Italy in China today?

We bear great respect for Marco Polo and Matteo Ricci's extraordinary contributions to promoting the acquaintance and understanding between China and Europe, and China and Italy.

Matteo Ricci was the first to devise a system for transcribing Chinese ideograms and tones into Latin characters, a system which set the base for modern transliteration, which is today crucial for the use of modern computers, smartphones and tablets.

Italy and China are two cultural superpowers. China considered Italy one of the cradles of human civilization.

At the same time, Italians are fascinated by Chinese culture, a trend illustrated by the success of Chinese cultural exhibitions and festivals in Italy and by the increasing number of Italian tourists to China.

During the cultural forum, the unique project of "twinning", or pairing UNESCO world heritage sites in China with those in Italy, was officially launched. The project enjoys the strong support of Prime Minister Gentiloni, who in his previous capacity as foreign minister conceived the idea, and was also warmly welcomed by Chinese leaders, who perceived the symbolic value and the potential to promote culture and tourism exchanges.

At the same time, building on the solid foundation of our relations and mutual trust, I think we must promote — especially among our respective peoples — a more accurate vision of our countries.

This will come naturally with growing people-to-people contact, tourism flows and cultural cooperation. But there is also a need to promote Italy and Italian style directly, here in China, focusing not only on history and culture, but also on our innovation capacity, creativity, high technology and research and development.

Italian industry does not focus only on luxury consumption goods but also on high technology productions, to which we devote the same attention for the details and the same creativity for the solution that we use in fashion or lifestyle productions. Our manufacture ranks third in the worldwide standing of countries whose firms are leaders in their respective market segments.

Take the health sector. When it comes to public health services, I take great pride in mentioning that according to independent international surveys Italy's healthcare system ranks among the first in the world thanks to its efficient allocation and use of resources and its high performances. Italy has been able to predict earlier than other countries the Chinese interest in the field of health and public welfare and has already started its cooperation with China.

Italian companies are also looking forward to support the "green evolution" of China, with their unique know-how based on tradition, innovation and flexibility. Italy is at the top country in the world where solar energy contributes the most to the national energetic demand (8 percent - International Energy Agency report 2016). Overall, Italy's renewable energy use has nearly tripled in less than a decade, from 5.6 percent in 2004 to 16.7 percent in 2014, perfectly on track to meet its 2020 target of 17 percent.

We also have much to work on agriculture and food safety, urbanization, aviation and aerospace.

To conclude, Italy is a perfect combination of culture and innovation. A modern and effective Italy for a modern and effective China.

China and Italy formed a comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership in 2004. We've seen successful bilateral cooperation in trade, investment, education, cultural exchange, tourism, legal cooperation ... since then. What do you think about the partnership's past and future? Can you share some specific cases of cooperation that impressed you most?

I have already mentioned our joint strategy, the "Road to 50", which supports more in-depth cooperation in key sectors where our two systems can complement each other.

An impressive but sometimes lesser-known instance of cooperation is going on in the field of scientific research. I'm very proud that in the space sector, for example, Italy and China are working together to map the lunar surface using data of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. This cooperation will be further consolidated by an agreement to be signed during President Mattarella's State visit.

Italian and Chinese "Space archaeologists" are also working together to observe traces of the road network that made up the ancient Silk Road. The first results of this fascinating research were presented last October during our bilateral Science Week.

We have also established a unique collaboration in the field of High Energy Physics where Italy is one of the world leaders. Our National Institute of Nuclear Physics participates to one of most ambitious scientific experiment of China about the physics of neutrinos.

The Chinese market recognizes the value of Italian know-how and products, but our goal is still to grow further. "Made in Italy" may be the answer to changing Chinese needs.

I had impressive evidence of this last November in Shanghai, during the first foreign edition of the "Salone del Mobile", the important Italian Design and Furniture Fair. Italy is China's No 1 furniture exporter, with a market share of around 20 percent. This figure is expected to rise by an additional 40 percent by 2019.

The growth of the Italian furniture sector in China reflects a Chinese market in which consumers are increasingly sophisticated and interested in quality products, including Italian ones.

Finally, looking to new avenues of cooperation, we are very much engaged in promoting the so-called "Do it with Italy": collaborations between Italian and Chinese companies which will spur new bilateral industrial partnerships, eventually to include those additional countries where the interests of Italy and China, together with the Chinese government strategies of "go global" and of the "New Silk Road", could converge.