The Italian government expects a robust collaboration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, particularly the Philippines, in pursuing the country’s green initiatives to fight climate change’s ill effects.
“There is great potential to exploit together. The relationship between the ASEAN area and Italy has been improving constantly and very rapidly in the past five years. In this respect, the Philippines, with its very high growth rate, represents one of the best opportunities for Italy as a nation,” Mauro Battocchi, the director general, Directorate-General for Country Promotion, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy, said.
In a presentation at the Manila High-Level Dialogue on ASEAN Italy Economic Relations, the Italian representative stressed that ASEAN-Italy trade is worth more than $20 billion, of which $9.7 billion are represented by Italian exports to ASEAN and $12 billion refer to ASEAN exports to Italy.
In the last five years, overall commercial trade between Italy and ASEAN has grown by 52 percent, more than the United Kingdom (13 percent), Germany (12.8 percent) and France (12.7 percent), highlighting the great dynamism of Italy-ASEAN economic relations.
Moreover, it was said that among ASEAN countries, the Philippines represents 8.3 percent of Italian exports to the area and 2.7 percent of imports to Italy.
“Italy is exporting technology, especially green technology, especially at this stage of fighting climate change. I believe in the coming years, we are going to work hard together with the Asian Development Bank and the Italian agencies that are in charge of promoting business, trade, and investments. We will work very hard to make this potential turn into reality,” Battocchi added.
Battochi stressed that for the Philippines, the potential investments that Italian businesses can pour are in the fields of Italian goods, machinery applied to agriculture, and exports in Italian consumer goods such as food, fashion, textile, design, and furniture.
