No longer in Belt and Road Initiative, Italy focuses on strategic ties with China, leaders invited to Beijing this year
- Visits by Italian president and prime minister being planned for this year are a sign of ‘positive relations’, Ambassador Massimo Ambrosetti says
- China’s Commerce Minister and delegation to attend Joint Economic Committee meeting in Verona next month
Italy’s top diplomat in Beijing told the Post that Chinese authorities had invited President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to visit this year, which marks 20 years of the bilateral strategic partnership.
“This is a confirmation of the positive relations between Italy and China, otherwise these visits would not be on the agenda of our leaders,” he said. “There is political willingness to keep the relations between China and Italy at a very strategic level.”
He said dates for the visits had still to be arranged, but they were “being planned and hopefully they will both take place in 2024”.
He was speaking in Hong Kong on March 15 before attending a performance by Milan’s famed Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company at the Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Questions were raised about the relationship between the two countries after Italy announced last December that it would pull out of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s plan to link economies in Asia, Europe and Africa into a China-centred trade network.