Ore 15.30 – Terzi in Asia – Road show in Italy on business opportunities in Vietnam
A road show in four major Italian cities to present our business community with all the opportunities for investment and work in Vietnam. This was the announcement by Minister Giulio Terzi during a press conference in Hanoi with his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh. The road show will take place after the ASEAN Awareness Business Forum planned for 22-23 March at the foreign ministry in Rome.
Also in April, the opening of Hanoi Casa Italia, Terzi reported, underscoring that “the upcoming 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Hanoi and Rome will also be an important opportunity to reinforce collaboration with Vietnam in the spheres of culture, university study and the Italian language, a highly effective instrument for economic promotion”.
The anniversary celebrations in March 2013, Tezi explained, “will also be an occasion for setting up a calendar of activities to strengthen our two countries’ partnership”.
11:30 – Minister Terzi leaves Kochi for Vietnam, second leg of his Asia mission
Minister Terzi left Kochi for Vietnam at the end of a visit to India that focused on bilateral relations and on the incident involving two Italian servicemen. Terzi had a long meeting with his colleague Krishna in which he reiterated the Italian government’s conviction that procedures should be pursuant to international law. The minister also met briefly with Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Gerone to underscore his pledge to resolve the crisis as rapidly as possible. Meanwhile, Under-Secretary Staffan de Mistura, in India for eight days now, will remain in Kochi to personally monitor developments in the affair.
Italy-India: Terzi meets with the two Italian servicemen – New impetus to trade between Rome and New Delhi
The incident involving the two marines, but also the goal of strengthening the strategic partnership between Italy and India, were the focus of Minister Giulio Terzi’s meetings with the Indian leadership on the first leg of his mission to Asia. The minister spoke for ten minutes with the two Italian servicemen, Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre, at the police guesthouse in Kochi, near Kerala. “I was deeply struck by the quality of these men”, the minister said, adding that he had telephoned their families and updated them on the situation. “I found them in excellent spirits”, he said, “very brave and optimistic that the situation will be resolved rapidly”. Upon his arrival in Delhi, the minister asserted that the “Italy has jurisdiction in the incident involving the two Italian marines, which took place in international waters”, expressing his hope that, in the course of the investigation, “the collaborative and positive spirit that has thus far emerged” would prevail.
The purpose of the Indian leg of Terzi’s mission to Asia, but also in Vietnam and Singapore, is also to strengthen trade relations. According to what emerged from Terzi’s meeting with Indian Minister for Industry Anand Sharma , Rome and Delhi have strengthened relations. The meeting was then opened to the Italian business persons accompanying the minister. “The numbers and opportunities that the Indian Trade and Industry Minister illustrated”, the minister commented, “confirm a need to pursue the integrated public/private approach that inspired this mission to Asia”. “Markets, but also potential foreign investors, are a strategic factor in our economy’s growth, which is one of the government’s priority concerns”, he added.
In this sense, Terzi explained to the Indian minister, structural reforms, liberalisation measures and de-bureaucratisation all combine to make the Italian system a much more favourable investment environment. And if Italy is inviting Indians to invest, Delhi too launched an appeal to the Italian firms represented at the Delhi meeting –Fincantieri, Todini Costruzioni, Techint, Cooperative muratori e cementisti – to invest in India. The world’s largest producer of food, but lagging behind in food processing, India intends to invest $1.3 trillion in infrastructure over the next 5 years in the form of public partnerships. Moreover, it intends to boost manufacturing from 16% to 25% of GDP over the next 10 years, with the ambitious goal of creating 100 million new jobs. Minister Sharma confirmed that he was ready and willing to work with Italian business consortiums, not least in order to jumpstart trade figures that stalled at 8 billion in 2011. This will also be the focus of six joint commissions, whose efforts will focus on infrastructure, manufacturing, advanced innovative research, IT, pharmaceuticals, leather and agriculture/food processing between now and June, when Sharma will take part in the Italy-India Business Forum in Rome. Finally, the two ministers agreed on the need to invest more in Africa, where India is especially interested.
