Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has announced a landmark agreement to sign a three-year action plan with China, aimed at "implementing new forms of cooperation."
During the business forum as part of her official visit to Beijing, Meloni emphasized the significance of the forum, stating, "This business forum represents an important and valuable opportunity to strengthen our partnership, assess our strengths and weaknesses, understand what has been fruitful and what has not, and this will allow us to build more effective trade relations on an equal and mutually beneficial basis."
Meloni's government has withdrawn from Beijing's Belt, Road Initiative, a memorandum of participation signed by former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in 2019. The initiative aimed to increase trade and potentially utilize Italian ports for the realization of the concept proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, which sought to intensify multilateral trade and investment projects. Italy was the only G7 country to join the initiative at the time.