Italy aims to be China’s first G7 partner on belt and road
Deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio says he wants to sign cooperation deal with Beijing before year is out
Italy wants to become the first G7 country to endorse China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” and plans to do so before the end of the year, the European country’s deputy prime minister said on Friday.
“I hope very much we can complete a memorandum of understanding [MOU] with China within 2018,” Luigi Di Maio told reporters in Beijing at the end of a two-day visit to the country.
Di Maio’s next trip would be in early November for the China International Import Expo in Shanghai, he said.
China’s multi-trillion-dollar belt and road plan aims to boost trade and infrastructure links across Asia, Africa and Europe. It takes its name from the ancient Silk Road that connected the ancient empires of China and Rome.
More than 80 countries have already signed MOUs to work with Beijing on the plan, the most recent being Greece last month. But they have yet to be joined by any of the Group of 7 nations, namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States.