Letter from CICC Chairman Lorenzo Riccardi

Dear Members and Friends,

I would like to thank you for your support throughout the year. This is a very special moment for Italy-China economic relations, marked by high-level official visits involving our business community alongside the Italian Embassy, diplomatic missions, ITA, and IIC.

The activities carried out by the Chamber this year include participation in several exhibitions, such as the Hainan Consumer Expo, Zhuhai Airshow, Grand Canal Expo, China Food and Drink Fair, China International Supply Chain Expo, and the World Design Cities Conference, with CICC temporary museum dedicated to the Italian Champions.

We have strengthened our partnership with Confindustria by co-organizing the roundtable on investments during the Italian Premier’s visit to China. Additionally, we have promoted our cooperation with CCPIT on several occasions, signing an MOU in Shenzhen and meeting with their leadership in Beijing.

The Chamber also achieved record participation at the Panda d’Oro Awards in Shanghai, Festa dell’Amicizia in Suzhou, and Notte Italiana in Beijing. We organized an increased number of company visits, including to some of the largest Italian industrial investments in China.

Our company members participated in numerous seminars, meetings, and roundtables across various provinces, and municipalities: Anhui, Beijing, Chongqing, Guangdong, Hainan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanghai, Sichuan, Tianjin, and Zhejiang.

We have been involved in discussions with representatives of the Italian government during their official missions in China, with the Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, followed by the visits of our Premier Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella.

CICC has also been included in the Action Plan signed by the two governments, which will cover the next three years and focus on six key areas: trade and investment, finance, innovation, sustainability, healthcare, and culture.

From our advocacy and service survey, we understand the current challenges of competition, market access, bureaucracy, and economic slowdown. However, we also recognize that China remains a key opportunity for Italian investors as the largest market in Asia.

We are committed to strengthening our interactions with members, improving the Chamber’s governance, promoting new activities through our working groups, and providing support to small and medium-sized enterprises.

We aim to involve more young professionals in our initiatives and create opportunities through programs like Career Days and collaborations with academic institutions to enhance the quality of our content, also through the EU SME Centre, a EU project coordinated by CICC in China.

We had the opportunity to engage with local and national leaders in every consular district, but we aim to expand the Chamber’s presence in new provinces and prefectures.

We launched the Business Sentiment Survey 2024-2025, which will highlight economic trends for Italian companies in the market. The results will be presented in 2025, both in Rome at the Italian Parliament and in Beijing at the Ministry of Commerce.

Advocacy remains a priority as we continue to engage with both Italian and Chinese institutions, as well as other chambers in the region, to build stronger partnerships and create better opportunities for our members.

I wish you all the best for the coming year.

Lorenzo Riccardi

Chairman

China-Italy Chamber of Commerce