Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni arrived in China to boost cooperation with the world's second-largest economy and even out trade ties, she told reporters on Tuesday, during a visit to burnish ties after leaving the latter's Belt and Road Initiative.
Meloni, making her first visit to China as prime minister, which comes after Italy left Chinese President Xi Jinping's flagship initiative last year, said the eurozone's third-largest economy wanted to rebalance ties with Beijing.
"Today, Italian investment in China is about three times as much as Chinese investment in Italy," Meloni said. "We clearly want to work to remove obstacles for our products to access the Chinese market."
Asked what the right-wing government she has led since 2022 hoped to gain from her visit, Meloni responded that Italy sought to "strengthen our co-operation with a view to ... clearly rebalancing trade."
Italy is of strategic importance to China as it has struck out on its own with Beijing before.
It could prove to be a moderating voice within the European Union, as the bloc's 27 members weigh up backing the European Commission over tariffs on Chinese electric cars.
In 2019, Italy became the only member of the G-7 industrialized democracies to join Xi's Belt and Road infrastructure investment scheme that aims to resurrect the ancient Silk Road trade route, in a diplomatic coup for China.
Although Rome eventually exited the program under U.S. pressure last year, it signaled that it still desired to develop its trade ties with the $18.6 trillion economy.
Asked whether she had specifically discussed with Xi Chinese automakers opening factories in Italy during her Monday meeting, Meloni said "no" but added: "The issue of electric mobility is one of the topics included in our memorandum of industrial cooperation."
Meloni on Monday told Xi that Italy plays an important role in China's relations with the EU, which are currently dominated by talk of tariffs, but continued to say that she hoped for trade relations that are "as balanced as possible."
"As I have said many times, we were the only nation among the great nations of Western Europe to be part of the Silk Road. But we were not the nation that had the best trade with China. Far from it," Meloni told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the Belt and Road Initiative.
"There are other nations in Europe that have had a much higher volume of Chinese investment."
