Economy

Of spaghetti, MP3 and much more...

By Shi Yingying (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-30 09:57

New Italian envoy seeks to change the mindset and wants to promote ties between small and medium-sized enterprises. Shi Yingying reports

'When we talk about Italy, you immediately think about spaghetti, isn't that true??asked Attillio Massimo Iannucci, the newly appointed Italian ambassador to China, with his strong accent that stresses the second-to-last syllable of "spaghetti? Under the sharp focus of his eyes, most Chinese would probably nod and lower their heads. He continued to say, "I came (to China) to tell you, we can do spaghetti, but we can do more!?

Attillio Massimo Iannucci, the newly appointed Italian ambassador to China. [Photo / China Daily]

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Iannucci, who arrived last December to take up his new assignment, said he would aim to change Chinese people's traditional image of Italy during his stay in China, while improving bilateral and diplomatic ties at the same time.

"In the hearts of many Chinese, Italy is a dreamland that is famous for culture, food, fashion and football, but there's something that's not very well known - Italian inventors."

Batteries, plastic, radio, scooters, coffee machines, all of these were invented by Italians.

"You thought MP3 was invented by an American or Chinese? No, it was an Italian during the 1990s," he said.

Leonardo Chiariglione is an Italian engineer who pioneered the establishment of digital multimedia formats - the technology that revolutionized the music and television industry.

Iannucci first visited China in 1991, and he discovered that the famous Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, came to Shanghai to promote his invention at the city's iconic Peace Hotel about a century ago.

The man who invented radio waves over long distances helped to lay the foundation for radio communication in 1896. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics for wireless telegraphy.

Smart Italian inventors didn't stop there and put their intelligence and efforts into commercial usage, "which you can even find a trace in China", Ambassador Iannucci said.

He pointed to the chair he was sitting and said, "maybe this chair is made in Wenzhou or Ningbo, but it was probably made by an Italian machine - so you're surrounded by Italian technologies in China and you haven't noticed that."

In Italy, there are 4.5 million small and medium-sized enterprises, which means, almost one out of 11 Italian inhabitants are doing their own business, said Iannucci.

It is a pity to see the difficulties faced by these creative but tiny companies when they try to make contacts with Chinese enterprises, he said.

"They have no large presence (of them) in China because they're too small to risk their capital in China," he said. "Therefore, promoting partnership (between Italy and China) in the small and medium-sized enterprises sector would be on the top of my agenda."

Given Italy's geographical location in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, linking it to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the ambassador encouraged more Chinese tourists and businessmen to visit Italy.

Iannucci recently invited the mayor of Shanghai, Han Zheng, to visit Italy.

"Many Chinese may think it is difficult to get a visa to Italy, but that is no longer the case as the number of Chinese travelers to Italy jumped by 50 percent this January when compared with January last year," said the ambassador, adding that multiple-entry visas are now available to Chinese businesspeople.

Italy is also good at protecting the old while creating the new. With more and more Chinese respecting the slow-paced lifestyle, the Italian-based Slow City Organization, Cittaslow, discovered China and awarded Yaxi town of Gaochun county in Jiangsu province the title of "slow city".

The bored teenagers of Yaxi are impatient with the leisurely pace of hometown life. For them there is no nightlife to speak of, no bright lights, no excitement and they cannot wait to grow up and leave for the urban attractions of the big cities. But it was this laid-back lifestyle that attracted Cittaslow's attention.

Cittaslow was founded in Tuscany, Italy, in 1999. It was a spinoff from the Slow Food movement that started, also in Italy, in 1986 as a protest against the opening of the first McDonald's restaurant near the Spanish Steps in Rome. The movement championed a return to healthy, nutritious, home-grown, home-cooked food.

In contrast to the pace of slow cities, Iannucci observed the opposite in China's big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. "You can see so many young people running and walking quickly on the streets - they're full of energy. Once you arrive at the airport, you immediately feel the sense of activity and energy."

"That's the fundamental difference between the society of Italy and China - we have a much older society, with which the community is satisfied with what they've got. It's of course not being judgmental, it's just that fewer and fewer young Italians are interested in things that young Chinese like to do."