Chairman of the Italy-China Foundation Casare Romiti stated on May 30 that cooperation on SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) has become one of the important aspects of Sino-Italian economic cooperations and China’s fast economic development has provided vital opportunities for Italian SMEs.

During the 2007 China-Italy High-Level Business Forum on Enterprises Cooperation, Mr. Romiti stated that the economic globalization has brought tremendous challenges to the development of Italian SMEs and China’s rapid development has provided important opportunities for the SMEs of Italy.

Mr. Romiti stated that governments of both countries are making great efforts in establishing strong and stable Sino-Italian relations, which would benefit SMEs of both China and Italy.

SMEs, which account for 99.3% of the total number of enterprises in Italy, play an important role in the economy of Italy, which was known as the “cradle of SMEs”.

On the other hand, China’s SMEs also become the mainstay of its economic construction. Statistics show that by the end of 2005, over 4.2 mn SMEs have registered through the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, and the total value of final products and service trade from China’s SMEs accounted for 59% of its GDP.

The China-Italy High-Level Business Forum on Enterprises Cooperation was co-launched by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of PRC and related organizations of Italy in 2000. It was held three times up to now.

The theme of the 2007 forum was to strengthen enterprise-enterprise cooperation between China and Italy, and to boost Sino-Italian regional economic communication. The forum was hosted by the National Development and Reform Commission of PRC and Italian Department of governmental project planning and implementing, and was organized by NDRC’s coordinating Center for International Cooperation of SMEs, China International Cooperation Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, Italy-China Foundation and Rizhao Municipal Government.

(Source: Chinese Version of MOFCOM)