On the occasion of the Intergovernmental Summit between Italy and Germany underway today in Berlin, Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, spoke at the Business Forum held at the headquarters of the Federation of German Industries, together with the Italian Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, and the German Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, Robert Habeck.
The meeting, which continued with speeches by Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Olaf Scholz, was attended by leading representatives of Confindustria and the corresponding German federation, as well as important Italian companies.
“A few weeks after the annual meeting of Confindustria, BDI, and MEDEF, which took place here in Berlin, we wanted to convene this Business Forum today because the government has placed the strategy of growth diplomacy at the centre of its action, aimed at strengthening exports and fostering the internationalisation of the Italian production fabric”, said the Deputy Prime Minister.
Tajani also stressed that “Germany is a natural interlocutor of strategic importance for Italy, as it is our first trade partner, our first customer and supplier, to which we are bound by a perfect complementarity of economic systems; but we want to do more, favouring new forms of cooperation between companies and focusing on new and innovative projects in key sectors such as energy, mobility, connectivity, infrastructure, defence and security”.
The meeting allowed to deepen collaboration in economic and industrial sectors of priority interest, such as energy, defence and security, infrastructure and transport, finance, packaging, components, automotive and pharmaceuticals.
It is recalled that between 2020 and 2022, bilateral trade reached record figures, increasing by EUR 50 billion to reach EUR 168 billion last year. As of today, there are more than 2000 Italian companies operating in Germany, with 110 thousand employees and a turnover of more than EUR 60 billion.
