They call her "New Silk Road” and Italy trying to carve out a leading role within it as in the times of Marco Polo. On Monday 15 May, when it was still full night in Italy, the leaders of 29 countries met in Beijing at the invitation of President Xi Jinping and agreed to work together to build roads, railways, ports and other major infrastructure to increase connectivity between Asia, Europe and Africa. “One belt, one road”, in the acronym Obor, this is the name of the project (one belt, one road) and only the China is willing to invest in it over a trillion dollars.
"Italy can play a leading role in this great operation that China holds dear: for us it is a great opportunity and my presence here means how important we consider it - commented the prime minister from Beijing, Paolo Gentiloni – I think the Chinese are very clear that we need to get to the Mediterranean and the easiest way to connect with Europe directly comes in particular from Italian and Greek ports. We have a very strong offer that comes above all from Trieste and Genoa which are connected to Europe by rail corridors. But also of Venice for cultural and touristic reasons”.
But what is our country doing to seize these opportunities? As it detects Sace in a study published today, a first attempt to enter the project is being done through the North Adriatic Port Association (Napa), of which the ports of Venice, Ravenna, Trieste, Koper (Slovenia) and Rijeka (Fiume, Croatia). The association has started work on a project off the coast of Venice to create a multi-modal offshore platform with the capacity to receive high-capacity vessels from Suez. The project, costing 2,2 billion euros, financed in part with public funds (350 million allocated by the Italian government), will make it possible to move between 1,8 and 3 million TEUs (the unit of measurement used in container transport: to give an idea, to date the total of Italian ports handles 6 million TEUs per year) and would allow the Adriatic to offer a more direct point of access to the German market than that of the Greek competitor, while remaining in line with international efficiency standards.
A further step in this direction was taken with the inauguration in June 2016 of the Gotthard tunnel which connects Italy and Switzerland and with the future Loetschberg tunnel (planned for 2020), which will connect Zurich to Milan in two and a half hours. Since the New Silk Road project is a guideline with extended implementation times, Italy can therefore exploit some of the undefined sections of the project to carve out its own space for action, whether it is across the Adriatic or by land.
Again according to Sace, a lever to be exploited is that ofAsian Infrastructure Investment Bank, desired by the Chinese government to support the projects included in the Obor plan, "bypassing" international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. Italy joined the AIIB as part of a series of discussion tables that saw the participation of Cassa depositi e prestiti. The characteristic of AIIB is that it is ready to evaluate and finance projects (at rates which, however, are not facilitated like those granted by multilateral institutions), particularly in the infrastructural sector, which are proposed to it by member countries; financing to non-adherent countries will hardly be granted. A more proactive approach is therefore necessary to access a pool of important loans and take advantage of the privileged position that Italy has today: the bank has a share capital of 100 billion dollars and Italy is the 12th country member with a relatively high share, equal to 2,58%.
Other opportunities, concludes Sace, can be seized in the countries of theCentral Asia. The 65 countries involved in Obor absorb 27% of Italian exports to the world but they are countries with high growth margins. To date, Italian companies have established a presence in these territories, operating above all in the Oil & Gas sector. In the wake of a potential economic development of the geographies affected by Obor and the stimulus towards a diversification of the economy of the "stan" countries, Italian companies can offer themselves on these markets more in the short term with the products of instrumental mechanics, goods necessary for a technological upgrade and production diversification, and in the medium-long term with consumer goods such as those in the fashion, furniture and electrical appliances sectors.
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