Italian Premier Romano Prodi on Wednesday kicked off an important six-day tie-boosting trip to China by saying that Italy had to make up for lost time.
Speaking to reporters after touching down in the eastern city of Nanjing, Prodi said that "we have arrived late (in China) and now we have no choice but to go full speed if we want to close the gap".
"We have to insert ourselves into this fast-developing world," the centre-left leader continued.
"Italy has remained on the fringes for far too long. We must use all the strength we have to enter (the Chinese market), despite our many weaknesses," Prodi said.
"One only has to look at Nanjing - complete redevelopment, infrastructure, enormous output capacity and an export level for a single region which equals that of an entire European country: that's China," said the former European Commission chief.
In a sign of how much importance Prodi is placing on this trip, the delegation he is heading is the largest Italian one to ever visit China.
It consists of four ministers including Foreign Trade Minister Emma Bonino, one junior minister and three undersecretaries plus representatives of 12 of Italy's 20 regions and top members of the powerful industrial employers'federation Confindustria, the Italian Foreign Trade Institute
(ICE) and the Italian Banking Association (ABI).
Some 500 Italian businessmen are included in the Confindustria, ICE and ABI delegations. The Italian premier told Chinese officials at an
official banquet later on Wednesday that his visit was designed to "relaunch relations between China and Italy, consolidate a real strategic alliance and lay the foundations for stronger cooperation in all fields".
"Italy must play a strong and active role in Asia and China in particular," he said.
The premier also praised China's decision to send a peacekeeping contingent to Lebanon.
China announced earlier this week that it planned to contribute some 1,000 soldiers to a United Nations multi-national force being sent to Lebanon to try and keep the peace between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Italy is taking a leading role in the deployment, sending the largest contingent consisting of 3,000 troops. Prodi said he was "extremely pleased" by China's decision to contribute. After Nanjing, one of China's largest and most important urban economies, Prodi will visit three other cities that are key to China's economic engine: Guangzhou (Canton), Shanghai and Tianjin.
His trip will end in the Chinese capital of Beijing, where Prodi will hold talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. Meanwhile, Confindustria chief and Fiat Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo was awarded honorary citizenship of Nanjing on his arrival here, where Fiat has one of its biggest production plants.
The Italian automaker has been making vehicles in Nanjing for some 20 years.
Montezemolo told city officials that "this honour is an encouragement to do more to increase trade, economic and cultural ties with China and in particular Nanjing". Fiat will sign two major partnership accords during the China trip, one in Nanjing between its truck and bus unit Iveco and Nanjing Automobile Corporation (NAC), China's oldest carmaker; and another in Beijing between Fiat and China's Saic Motor Corporation.
Montezemolo agreed with Prodi that Italy had dragged its heels with regards to the Chinese market. "We cannot afford to waste any more time... Italian firms have brands, know-how and credibility. The real problem is to find local partners for production sites and a distribution network for our products," the Confindustria chief said.
Stressing that "small businesses cannot make it here on their own", Montezemolo said that the Italian government and Confindustria would do everything possible to help and support companies seeking a way into the Chinese market. A total of 1,428 Italian companies are currently present in China, more than 80% of which are large sized. Italian exports to China jumped 18.6% over the past 12 months with textiles and machinery leading the upwards trend.
But the balance still remains heavily tipped in China's favour.
Last year, Chinese imports to Italy amounted to 11.7 billion dollars, an increase of 27% over 2004, while Italy's exports to China amounted to 6.9 billion.
One of Prodi's most important stops will be in Guangzhou, where he and Minister Bonino will open the city's international fair of small to medium-sized firms. Prodi's policies towards China appear to mark a break with those of the previous, centre-right government headed by Silvio Berlusconi.
Under Berlusconi, the Italian government expressed repeated concern over a surge in cheap Chinese imports, particularly in the textile and shoe sectors. Prodi has said he will address the problem of Chinese shoe imports and the Italian government is reported to be considering lobbying for the introduction of duties on leather footwear from both China and Vietnam.
