Kunshan - a Chinese city close to Shanghai - has recently signed an agreement with the Italian Chamber of Commerce in China in order to facilitate the settlement of Italian companies in the territory.

As explained by the Italian News Agency AgiChina, businesses from the Bel Paese willing to invest in the area will benefit from governmental aids for salaries, research and development, along with logistic assistance. It seems a very attractive perspective for Italian companies, also strengthened by the recent trip to Italy of Mrs Jin Ming, Kunshan mayor.

During her visit in Milan, Mrs Ming had the chance to deliver her speech to a plethora of Italian entrepreneurs and expanded the collaboration agreement to the industrial association Assolombarda Confindustria Milano Monza e Brianza. Mrs Ming identifies several similarities between the metropolitan area of Monza and Kunshan and she seemed very enthusiastic about the cooperation agreement.

At present, 7700 foreign companies have chosen Kunshan as their headquarters. Among them, 41 Italian companies are already present on the territory and they have invested 180 million Euros. The new settlements are framed within the Silk Road Initiative, the path intended to reinforce the economic cooperation between Italy and China. Kunshan is performing really well. As highlighted by Mrs Ming, "Thirty years ago our city was merely a rural place, today it is an industrial city. We moved from manufacture to high technology and we now want to progress in this path". The best way to do it was to attract new foreign investments that could benefit from the local highly specialised human resources.

High technology is the new sector Kunshan wants to be a leader of and Italy will play the role of the protagonist as well. Kunshan considers Italy as one of the most important countries to collaborate with - as stressed by Mrs Ming in Milan -  and a fruitful collaboration is about to start and bring good fruits to both parties involved.

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