Italian Trade Official: President Hu Jintao's Visit to Italy to Boost Sino-Italian Economic and Trade Cooperation

Anchor: Chinese President Hu Jintao will pay a state visit to Italy from July 5th to 8th at the invitation of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
Chinese and Italian officials say the visit will improve the all-around relationship between the two countries.

CRI's Zheng Chenguang has more.

Reporter: Wu Hongbo, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister, told a press conference on Thursday that 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Italy.

He said President Hu Jintao's upcoming visit to Italy would be greatly significant for the countries' bilateral ties.

"China and Italy both attach great importance to the visit. We hope to consolidate political trust through the visit, continue to respect the major concerns of each other, promote closer coordination in dealing with international affairs, and lay good political foundations for bilateral ties."

Wu also said the visit will highlight people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, as well as cooperation on environmental protection, tourism, science and technology.

Antonino Laspina, the Italian trade commissioner in Beijing, said economic and trade relations between China and Italy have been developing rapidly in recent years. He said dynamic economic exchanges between the two countries have brought more Italian investment to China.

"President Hu Jintao's visit will bring about a huge opportunity for Sino-Italian economic and trade cooperation to leap forward. It will also create favorable conditions for economic and trade exchanges and investment in each other's territory."

It is reported that Hu Jintao will also lead a large delegation of entrepreneurs to Italy.

Laspina said the two governments will sign a series of cooperation agreements. On the economic and trade fronts, Chinese entrepreneurs and their Italian counterparts are expected to reach a considerable number of agreements and initiatives for cooperation.

Laspina also noted the Chinese and Italian economies are complementary to each other, which could enable them to realize common development against the backdrop of the global economic crisis.

"China needs to spur its domestic demand and modernize its manufacturing system and infrastructure. Italy could cooperate with China in the domains of science and technology, helping China to solve these problems. For example, Italy could provide high and new technologies to China's light industries such as textile, toy, shoe-making and furniture manufacturing. What's more, it could also help China's automobile and energy sectors become more competitive in the world market."

Italy is China's fifth largest trade partner in the European Union. Last year, the total trade volume between the two countries was more than 38 billion U.S. dollars.

Zheng Chenguang, CRI news.