Editor's note: Matteo Giovannini is a finance professional at ICBC in Beijing and a member of the China Task Force at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The first week of November put China one more time at the epicenter of trade. Sixty-four countries and three international organizations flocked to Shanghai eager to introduce their products to the biggest consumer market in the world at the second edition of the China International Import Expo (CIIE).

This year's theme of CIIE was "New Era, Shared Future" and focused on the Expo's mandate of providing companies with a platform to showcase high-caliber products and services from around the world. The CIIE offers a unique opportunity for SMEs to gain visibility at the eyes of China's consumers and the chance to strike deals with local partners for the distribution of their products.

During the last two years, China has rolled out several concrete measures such as widening foreign access to the domestic market and guaranteeing a business friendly environment, all factors that have reinforced global confidence in the Chinese market.

As a consequence, foreign companies are enthusiastically grabbing the opportunity to contribute to the Chinese growth with their own products.

Among the 64 participating countries of this edition, 15 of them were invited as guest of honor. These countries included Cambodia, Czech Republic, France, Egypt, India, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Peru, Russia, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Zambia.

From this list, it is not difficult to notice the presence of two major economies and G7 countries such as Italy and France that were under the spotlight of local and international media.

Italy participated in CIIE with great expectations given the importance of the Memorandum of Understanding signed early this year in Rome that made of Italy the first G7 country to formally support the Belt and Road Initiative.

At this aspect, it should be added that 2020 will mark not only the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, but also the year of culture and tourism and many bilateral events are already in the pipeline.

Italy is one of the major global economies, ranking as the third-largest in the Eurozone and the eighth-largest in the world. The Italian economy is mainly based on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) making of Italy the world's sixth largest manufacturing country and second in the European Union behind Germany.

The country is well recognized for its creative and innovative business, the competitive agricultural sector with the world's largest wine production, and for its influential and high-quality automobile, machinery, food, design and fashion industry.

Nevertheless, Italy is lagging behind other European countries in terms of export to China. According to Eurostat data, from last year, Italy exported 13 billion euros to China while France, UK and Germany exported 21, 23 and 94 billion respectively.

This is in strong contrast with the globally recognized quality of its product and with the potential for a stronger presence on Chinese market in terms of market share. In this context, CIIE is a golden opportunity especially for less well-known Italian companies to show their products and make customers understand the value added given by the brand "Made in Italy."

As an example, during CIIE this year, one of the most reported deals was the strategic partnership between Carioca S.p.A., famous Italian markers brand, with Shanghai M&G Stationery Inc., the largest stationery company in China.

Under this agreement, M&G is going to become the long-term exclusive distributor of Carioca products in China, enabling the Italian brand to penetrate the market and become a leading foreign brand in the children's creative education in China.

This is the kind of cooperation that Italian and Chinese leaders foresaw when they met in Rome and agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding. It is also important to stress that the MoU has to be considered just as a first step to build a stronger relationship for mutual prosperity, but it is not enough.

Italy now has to make a step forward to turn its economy into a more dynamic and attractive one and potentially try to close the gap with Germany, UK and France in terms of volume of export to China considering that these countries refused to sign any support to the Belt and Road Initiative.

For this reason, the celebration of important anniversaries and the participation to the third edition of the CIIE could make the 2020 a golden year for the relationship between Italy and China.

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