Italy promotes SMEs' trade with China
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-06-10 08:40

Italy is gearing up to promote its small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) trade and investment with China.

That's the view according to the China-Italy Chamber of Commerce.

"A major work of our chamber this year is to organize Italian business missions to China," Davide Cucino, chairman of the chamber, said yesterday adding that most of the delegates came from SMEs.

Each mission will be composed of business people from 20 to 25 enterprises. They will meet 10 to 15 potential partners during visits to China.

Cucino expected to organize at least one such mission in each month.

"I hope the meeting we organized will help these SMEs find partners to trade or co-operate with," he said.

Large companies all had their own channels to seek overseas partners and develop markets abroad, so offering help to SMEs tops the agenda of his chamber.

A large-scale Art in Life festival organized by the chamber also aims to enhance bilateral trade and investment. The programme opens today and will also be held in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

Presenting made-in-Italy products to Chinese people, the gala helps enterprises to penetrate the Chinese market.

The event of this year will cover a number of areas ranging from food and wines, fashion, luxury cars to designs and architecture.

"The participants, particularly SMEs, will also look for local partners for joint ventures or other forms of co-operation," he said.

Such events were held for the first time in 2004, and the trial event was found to be a triumph.

"Therefore, the chamber decided to make it a regular event," Cucino said. "We enlarged the range of the event this year," he added.

Italy's foreign direct investment (FDI) to China dropped some 11 per cent year-on-year to US$280.82 million last year.

The number of contracts grew over 21 per cent to 358, statistics from the Italian side show.

The chairman said this shows an increasing number of Italian SMEs were investing in China.

"The number of contracts largely increased while the average investment dropped," he said. "It means more investment came from small projects."

Contracted investment, which indicated a future trend, increased more than 73 per cent to US$1.08 billion last year, showing Italian companies have full confidence in investing in China.

According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs, Sino-Italian trade volume hit US$15.68 billion in 2004, reflecting an increase of 33.6 per cent over the previous year.

China's exports to Italy stood at US$9.26 billion, up 38.7 per cent year-on-year.

The country's imports from Italy increased some 27 per cent to US$6.45 billion. Italy is now the fifth-largest trade partner of China in the EU.

Italian enterprises, investing in or trading with China, also encounter some problems, such as IPR (intellectual property right) infringement.

Cucino said the Chinese Government had provided enough legal tools to deal with these problems.

"We have seen a strong determination from the commitments of China's central government," he said.

Meanwhile, he suggested the central government strengthen its co-ordination with local governments to improve the implementation of laws and regulations at provincial and local levels.

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