Meloni’s five-day visit comes several months after Italy dropped out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Italy and China signed a three-year action plan on Sunday to implement past agreements and experiment with new forms of cooperation, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on an official visit to the Chinese capital.
Meloni is trying to reset relations with China as fears of a trade war with the European Union are interwoven with continued interest in attracting Chinese investment in auto manufacturing and other sectors.
“We certainly have a lot of work to do and I am convinced that this work can be useful in such a complex phase on a global level, and also important at a multilateral level,” she said in remarks at the start of a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
Her five-day visit comes several months after Italy dropped out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a signature policy of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to build power and transportation infrastructure around the world to stimulate global trade while also deepening China’s ties with other nations.
Still, Italy remains keen to pursue a strong economic relationship with China. Stellantis, a major automaker that includes Italy’s Fiat, announced in May that it had formed a joint venture with Leapmotor, a Chinese electric car startup, to begin selling EVs in Europe.
Li, addressing Italian and Chinese business leaders after the meeting with Meloni, said that China’s push to upgrade its economy will increase demand for high-quality products, expanding opportunities for cooperation between companies from their two countries.
He pledged to open Chinese markets further, ensure that foreign companies get the same treatment as Chinese ones and create a transparent and predictable business environment, responding to frequently heard complaints from businesses operating in the world’s second-largest economy.
“At the same time, we hope the Italian side will work with China to provide a more fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies doing business in Italy,” he said.
Meloni told the business leaders that the two sides had signed an industrial collaboration memorandum that includes electric vehicles and renewable energy, which she described as “sectors where China has already been operating on the technological frontier for some time … and is sharing the new frontiers of knowledge with partners.”
