Italy’s FM in China to deepen economic ties, urge Iran peace role

ROME: Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was headed Thursday to China, seeking to boost economic ties while also calling on Beijing to help efforts toward peace in Iran and Ukraine.
Tajani, a senior member of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right government, was due to meet with China’s commerce minister Wang Wentao and foreign minister Wang Yi later Thursday in Beijing, his office said.
“We’re working to support our companies so they can operate more and more in such an interesting market as the Chinese one,” Tajani said in a video posted online as he departed.
“And of course I will ask China and the Chinese government to lend a hand in building peace in the Middle East and also in Ukraine.”
China is a key market for Italian exports — its second largest outside the European Union, after the United States.
Bilateral trade was worth nearly 75 billion euros in 2025, up 11.2 percent compared to 2024, it said.
Tajani will seek to remove barriers for businesses, as well as rebalancing trade and investment flows, according to his ministry.
His April 16-18 trip also has a cultural component. He will inaugurate a new exhibition in Beijing on Italian Renaissance masters, curated by the famed Uffizi Galleries in Florence.
On Friday he will head to Shanghai and meet representatives of the Italian business community.