Prior to France, President Xi Jinping paid a visit to Italy, where he visited Sicily and met with the island's president in the regional capital Palermo. His visit came hours after China and Italy signed a historic agreement to mark Italy's entry to the Belt and Road Initiative. That agreement put Italian ports in the spotlight. CGTN's Michal Bardavid has more.

Italy's ports no doubt create a perfect gateway for Chinese companies to European markets and several Italian ports are hoping to attract Chinese investments to increase their capacity and fulfill their potentials.

MICHAL BARDAVID PALERMO "The port of Palermo currently operates with a capacity to handle about 10,000 TEUs. However, officials in Palermo believe that if a much larger and more efficient port is constructed here, that capacity can be increased to reach a level of 16 million TEUs."

The President of Confindustria Sicily explains that Palermo's location is very strategic.

DR. ALESSANDRO ALBANESE PRESIDENT, CONFINDUSTRIA SICILY "The Mediterranean Sea represents 0.6% of the seas around the world but in reality, 20% of sea traffic from around the world passes through the Mediterranean. And an important consideration is that this strategic position concerns not only the European countries but also the African countries that represent the new economic mine of the next 50 years."

The new port officials in Palermo hope to build needs approximately 5 billion euros of investment. The new project includes a hotel, residence, office spaces and beach facility as well.

Representatives of the Sicily Foundation believe they could put plan into action very quickly.

RAFFAELE BONSIGNORE LAWYER, SICILY FOUNDATION "The construction of a hub port has an important first moment in terms of time, which is bureaucratic, that is to obtain the necessary authorizations for a hub port and cannot be achieved except through the intervention of numerous institutions involved in authorizations. The estimate that has been made for our project, starting from the moment in which the authorizations were obtained, is a period of three years."

As more than half of trade between Europe and China goes through sea routes, a Mediterranean port hub would create a lot of new business potentials.

During Xi's visit in Palermo, Chinese and Italian officials also signed agreements related to agriculture and expressed their eagerness to increase cooperation in investments and tourism. Michal Bardavid, CGTN, Palermo.