Reviving Maritime Silk Road: Venice upgrades to embrace more trade from China

World
Europe

03:02

Venice, the beautiful canal city in Italy, used to be an important trading hub along the ancient Silk Road. Today, it is trying to revive the old glorious days by embracing new opportunities brought by China's maritime Silk Road project. Natalie Carneyreports from Venice.

Former Venice mayor Paolo Costa dreams of turning his city back into the vibrant trading hub it was some 1400 years ago when spices from the east were exchanged for textiles from the west.

PAOLO COSTA FORMER VENICE MAYOR "If you become again the point of interchange between Europe and the far east as it was in the past we are exactly in the same situation. So we are again exploiting our geographical position."

Tourism remains the main industry in the historic city contributing around 12% to the economy and providing around 13% of the jobs. Costa, an economist, says modifying Venice port for China's maritime Silk Road project will complement the tourism sector by expanding and diversifying the economy.

PAOLO COSTA FORMER VENICE MAYOR "If you want to optimize the way in which you can move freight from China to Europe, going by sea is much cheaper than going by land so you have to maximize the maritime leg and to minimize the land legs so the Adriatic is exactly the point in which you can do that."

NATALIE CARNEY VENICE, ITALY "85% of trade between Europe and Asia is maritime trade, giving Venice great importance when it comes to China's maritime Silk Road project. This beautiful canal city is being positioned to channel supply lines up towards Austria, Germany even Hungary, rivaling many important ports in northern Europe, such as Rotterdam."

"We have the most important Brown field in Europe, ready to be re-industrialized. (Natalie) Inviting investment in to build all this up."

The city of Venice is also convinced that they have the assets needed to accommodate the trade volume expected with the infrastructure ready and more than 2000 hectares of industrial land behind the port itself.

SIMONE VENTURINI, DEPUTY MAYOR FOR SOCIAL WELFARE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT "Therefore Venice can be a port that receives goods, processes them, produces them, and ships them off again. With this Venice has a competitive advantage that many other ports near us do not have."

An Italian-Chinese consortium led by The China Communications Construction Company group has designed the first phase of the Venice offshore port project, while local companies are already experienced in belt and road projects such as Venetian DBA Group.

FRANCESCO DE BETTIN PRESIDENT OF DBA GROUP "Our company's efforts and many sacrifices have led us to conquer the planning and computerization of the port of Baku Alat. As a result, we have the great opportunity as a group to define what are the protocols and standards of information exchange for the flow of goods on the Silk Road between China and Europe."

Venice needs more than tourism can offer and in the search for this is coming full circle by returning to its routes as an important trading hub along the ancient Silk Road. Natalie Carney CGTN, Venice, Italy.