 BRIEF
The friendship between Chinese and Italian people has a long history. Back in the 13th century, the famous Italian merchant and traveler Marco Polo came to China and left an unforgettable legacy in the history of Sino-Italian relations. Italy is among the first group of European countries establishing diplomatic relations with China after the founding of new China, and since then, bilateral cooperation in political, economic and trade areas has been progressing very smoothly. Our two countries have signed a series of inter-governmental agreements aimed at promoting bilateral economic and trade interactions. Agreement on Avoiding Double Taxation, Agreement on Encouragement and Mutual Protection of Investment, Economic Cooperation Agreement, just to mention a few. In 1998, China and Italy realized a total bilateral trade of US$4.85 billion, including US$2.57 billion of Chinese exports to and US$2.28 billion of Chinese imports from Italy. Today, Italy is China's 5th largest trading partner in the EU.
China is the biggest developing country in the world and Italy is an important developed country in the world. The differences in our respective resource composition, industrial structure and consumption levels testify the strong complementarity between our two economies. There are favorable conditions and broad prospects for further trade and economic cooperation between us.
INVESTMENT
Italian investors are among the latecomers to the Chinese market. Before 1991, there were very few investment projects by Italy in China. However, as the Chinese economy grows, the interest of Italian businessmen in the Chinese markets has grown stronger. Thanks to support from both the Chinese and Italian governments, there has been a remarkable increase in Italian investment in recent years. By the end of 1998, Italy had 1,254 investment projects in China, involving a total contractual value of US$2.14 billion. US$1.43 billion was already put in the Chinese market. As a result, Italy had become the 5th biggest investor in China within the EU, following United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Netherlands. From January to September this year, Italy invested in another 78 projects worth US$140 million in contract value, and actually put US$270 million in the Chinese market, both recording increases over the comparable period of last year. Italian investment is mostly located along the east coast in such sectors as automobiles, garments, textiles, footwear, leather, jewelry, machinery and electronic products, instruments, aviation and leasing. Several famous Italian company groups like Eni Agip, Fiat, FATA, Montedifon, PIRELLI and PIAGGIO already have significant investment in China. However, when compared with other developed nations, the number of large Sino-Italian projects is small and therefore, great potentials are to be tapped.
TRADE
China-Italy Import and Export Statistic
(value unit:US$10,000)
Total value
2001(1-9) 596,540 (+15.9%)
2000 688,000 (+22.7%)
1999 561,609
China export value
2001(1-9) 307,482 (+5.1%)
2000 380,200 (+29.8%)
1999 292,912 (+13.6)
China import value
2001(1-9) 289,058 (+30.2%)
2000 307,800 (+14.9%)
1999 268,697 (+17.9%)
China export to Italy: garment, textile and closing, shoes, tourism product, goats wool, toy, plastics product etc.
Italy export to china:
machinery, bovine leather and equine leather, textile and clossing, machine tool, stone processing machinery, rubber and plastics processing machinery, tobacco processing machinery, food and beverage processing machinery, medicine product, moulding boxes for Metal foundry, television, redia and telecommunication equipment etc.
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