The President of the Council Georgia Meloni arrived at the Great Hall of the People, a stone’s throw from Tiananmen Square, for the first institutional meeting of the mission in Beijing with the prime minister Li Qian.
The Prime Minister, with the Italian delegation, was welcomed by the honor guard of the People’s Liberation Army and the playing of the national anthems. After the bilateral meeting, the two Prime Ministers will open the seventh Italy-China business forum.
“I am very pleased to be here for the first official trip of this government, which was preceded by several high-level meetings”, with the missions of several ministers, among others, to “demonstrate the will to begin a new phase, to relaunch our bilateral cooperation in the year in which we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of our global strategic partnership”, said the Prime Minister at the start of the bilateral meeting with Li Qiang, announcing the signing of “a three-year action plan to experiment with new forms of cooperation”.
The Prime Minister recalled having had her first meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 in Bali, “the first G20, then the meeting she and I had last year, the G20 in New Delhi” and the “various visits of our ministers that preceded mine: the visit of the Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, the visit of the Tourism Minister, the visit of the Industry Minister and intense bilateral activity also with the celebration of the intergovernmental summit, with the joint economic commission that was held in Verona”.
“The business forum that we will host today” serves to “give another signal of the mutual interest that there is in implementing and also better balancing our investments, our commercial exchange. It will be an important event and I am sure that this initiative of ours will be extremely profitable”, Meloni clarified.
The Italy-China business forum, he added, “is a great opportunity” to “strengthen our partnership by reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses, on what has worked and what has not” and “to do so with the common goal of making trade relations increasingly fair and advantageous for all”.
“Our nation remains eager to cooperate, but it is essential that our partners demonstrate genuine cooperation by playing by the rules, to ensure that all companies can operate in international markets on a level playing field. Because if we want a free market, that market must also be fair,” the Prime Minister concluded.
“Trade” between Italy and China “has grown and settled in 2023 at around 67 billion euros with a large potential, I believe, still unexpressed. However, we cannot hide the problem of the strong imbalance with a significant deficit for Italy. This is a matter of great importance that we must address together and bring towards a progressive balance. On this, the Italian Government is ready to work together with the Chinese authorities and the private sector. I am convinced that dialogue on this issue, on improving the conditions of access to the Chinese market and on the protection of intellectual property, can produce effects that are far more beneficial than we imagine”, continued Meloni according to whom ”today more than ever, if we do not want to risk that peace and
and stability, we need, also in economic and trade relations, a shared strategy, based on decisions that do not harm each other and follow some basic principles”.
For this reason, it is necessary to “promote the ability to compete by making our economies and production and supply chains more resilient to shocks, more diversified, and able to generate technological innovations without losing manufacturing capacity; unleash the potential of the private sector, facilitate its healthy growth protected from distorting supports of competition; keep in mind the need for proportionality, to ensure that economic defense tools are also commensurate with the real level of risk and do not produce an involuntary compression of economic and commercial freedom, including international freedom, a principle that is the distinctive feature of a democracy and an open society like Italy”.
For the Prime Minister “it would be a grave mistake to ignore the growing risks of polarization and further verticalization of wealth” linked to the development of Artificial Intelligence, “not to mention those associated with the loss of human control over the decisions that machines will make, employed in the most varied sectors, including medical, or security or even in the military field. Addressing these challenges requires constructive and transparent collaboration. These elements, together with respect for the principles of reciprocity and equal conditions, are the cornerstone of relations between nations”.
“Generative Artificial Intelligence is destined to have a profound impact on our social and economic fabric and to radically change entire production segments,” he continued. “I know that even in China there is a lively debate underway on what have been defined as ‘new productive forces’, alluding, I imagine, precisely to the impact that artificial intelligence can have on productivity, as well as, I add, on the creation and destruction of jobs. Each of us is developing a different approach, but I believe that beyond the different sensibilities it is essential to develop a common reasoning, precisely in light of the repercussions that AI will have on the world of work, even for those professions with a higher level of specialization.”
Meloni, memorandum with China on electric cars and renewables
“The Memorandum of Industrial Cooperation that we have signed is a significant step” that “now includes strategic industrial sectors such as electric mobility and renewables, sectors where China has long been operating on the technological frontier, which requires it to act as a fully developed economy, which it is, sharing the new frontiers of knowledge with its partners”.
This was announced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaking in Beijing at the Italy-China business forum, during which 6 agreements were signed in various fields, from industry to food safety to education.
Meloni, Italy has a solid economy, now a stable government too
“Italy remains a solid economy, strategically positioned in Europe and the Mediterranean. The level of research and innovation, and the strength of our manufacturing system have always been our points of excellence”. This was stated by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaking at the Italy-China business forum underway in Beijing, underlining that “today we can also boast significant political stability, a fact that is quite rare for us, but not secondary, because political stability also guarantees the continuity of the strategies that we choose to pursue. It is a guarantee for those who invest and for those who receive the investment”.
“I do not want to forget the economic value of a strategic sector like tourism, which my government will continue to support with great determination,” she added, “recalling that Italy and China, heirs to an extraordinary cultural heritage, are competing in a thrilling head-to-head in the ranking of the largest number of UNESCO heritage sites.” Italy and China, the prime minister concluded, “I believe they still have a long way to go together. And I think it is up to us to pave the way. With determination, concreteness, and mutual respect.”