2024-07-31 06:08:05
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced a new stage in relations with China, which will develop on an alternative basis to the “New Silk Road”. As she indicated in a conversation with Italian journalists after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, “the framework of this strategic partnership will be a three-year action plan to increase cooperation,” Day.Az reports with reference to TASS.
“We are proposing an alternative approach to the Silk Road. I have always been against joining the One Belt, One Road initiative, so leaving it is a consistent choice. But this is not the only way to build our relations with China,” ANSA quotes her as saying. “The action plan is a new stage in relations with China,” she said.
Meloni believes that Italy has not benefited enough from its participation in the Belt and Road Initiative, which was enshrined in a memorandum signed by one of its predecessors, Giuseppe Conte, in 2019. Other European countries have a higher trade volume with China than Italy, she noted.
Meloni explained that the plan she signed is a “framework” and that the relevant ministers will work on specific points. One of the topics will be the joint production of electric machines as one of the areas of “industrial cooperation”. At the same time, she emphasized that “all geographical prerogatives of the origin of goods, their safety, and the environmental friendliness of materials” must be respected. “We are interested in increasing cooperation, but on an equal commercial basis,” the Italian prime minister added.
She particularly noted Beijing’s role as an important mediator in resolving “situations of instability in the current geopolitical context.”
Earlier, Meloni’s government withdrew from Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative (often called the “New Silk Road” in Western media – TASS note). This cooperation implied an increase in trade and the possibility of using Italian ports to implement the concept of activating multilateral trade and investment projects proposed in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Italy was the only G7 country to join the initiative.
Subscribe to our WhatsApp channel and stay up to date with the latest news!