China touts its Belt and Road Initiative to Italy that could end deal

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The Chinese Foreign Minister is seeking to convince his Italian counterpart of the benefits of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, which consists of development projects. infrastructure built and financed by China, as considered by Rome. whether to renew the agreement.

At a meeting on Monday, Wang Yi told Antonio Tajani that bilateral trade had increased from $50 billion to nearly $80 billion and that Italian exports to China had increased by around 30% over the past five years.

Although these figures have not been substantiated, the conservative Italian government has questioned the benefits of this agreement.

In 2019, Italy became the only European country to join the initiative led by then Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, and it is not expected to be extended when renewed at the end of the year.

China's official Xinhua news agency quoted Wang as telling Tajani that "China and Italy should adhere to the right way of getting along" with mutual respect and trust in the face of geopolitical disruptions and that China is ready to promote steady development of Sino-Italian relations.

The Italian news agency ANSA quoted Tajani as saying that "Italy is also a supporter of dialogue with Beijing at the level of the Union and, frankly, open dialogue on principles and rights."

China touts the Belt and Road Initiative, known as the BRI, as having succeeded in developing infrastructure in underdeveloped countries Critics say the BRI built vanity projects in countries that needed poverty eradication and basic services, while local governments were left with huge debts to Chinese state banks under contracts shrouded in secrecy.