Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and Unicredit support Italian companies in China. The two institutions have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen support: the new collaboration is aimed at supporting the development of Italian companies on the Chinese market both through ad hoc forms of financing and through the offer of skills by the respective specialized structures locals. The first concrete activity of the new partnership consists in the forthcoming launch of a financing transaction by CDP in favor of Unicredit, aimed at providing funding of a revolving nature for an amount up to 300 million euro to be used specifically for Italian companies operating in China or for those based in China controlled by Italian companies.
More generally, the Protocol provides for the identification of the most suitable operating formulas to allow access to credit for Italian companies in China, also through co-financing instruments or funding instruments in local currency (Renmimbi). “Thanks to this agreement with Unicredit, we are strengthening support activities for Italian companies abroad, as required by the broader internationalization support strategy outlined in the CDP Business Plan. Exports represented the main source of development for Italian companies in the most intense years of the crisis and will continue to be strategic for a highly manufacturing production system such as that of our country. In this context, China is clearly one of the main outlet markets for the many Made in Italy products,” said Nunzio Tartaglia, CDP's business manager.
“In 2018 the share of trade with China on the total Italian total was over 5%. To allow companies to seize important opportunities it is necessary to make increasingly effective financial and insurance instruments available to them. The Memorandum of Understanding signed with CDP goes in this direction and lays the foundations for stable collaboration, to the benefit of companies that represent the most dynamic part of the Italian economic-productive system. Unicredit has been present in Asia for over 40 years with branches in the main financial and industrial hubs, with the dual objective of supporting Italian and European customers active in the region and intercepting business flows to be channeled towards our countries", commented Gianfranco Bisagni, co-Head Corporate & Investment Banking of Unicredit.
