Italian Companies Have High Expectations For Innoprom Fair - Conoscere Eurasia NGO

GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th February, 2020) Italian companies are very interested in 2020 International Industrial Fair Innoprom in Russia's Yekaterinburg and have high expectations about it, President of Association Conoscere Eurasia Antonio Fallico told Sputnik.

The fair will be held in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg on July 7-10. Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio is expected to visit the fair.

"From the point of view of companies, Innoprom is more interesting [than St.Petersburg's International Economic Forum, SPIEF], because Italian companies already expect to have real meetings with real Russian companies. I hope that it will not be just an exhibition that never ends with real sale and purchase deals. Italian and European companies in recent years demonstrate vivid interest in this event. In Yekaterinburg, answers to many questions and expectations of these companies can be found. This is not the level of SPIEF, which will be completely different, it will be the level of ministers of trade," he added.

Companies from the regions of Liguria, Piedmont and Lombardy are going to participate in the fair.

According to the head of Association Conoscere Eurasia, which aims to develop relations between Italy, European Union, Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union, trade between Russia and Liguria region in Italy's north remains "limited" at "around 170-180 million Euros [$187-197 million]." According to the statistics of the Russian Federal Customs Service, Russian-Italian trade in 2018-2019 amounted to $32.9 billion.

"I must say that Liguria historically is the place where companies that are very actively developing in the energy sector are based, and they could be engaged in experience sharing with Russia. We should not forget also about the port of Genoa, which is a very important element of the Eurasian and European strategies, as well as the [China's trade route initiative] Silk Road," Fallico said.

He noted that there was good investment and collaboration potential in infrastructure, biomedicine, innovations in the field of mechatronics, and Industry 4.0 � the automation-focused trend in technology.

Fallico added that the Italian government was demonstrating a clear interest in deepening economic ties with Russia, but domestic problems prevented it from materializing.

"I am convinced that the desire to improve relations with Russia exists. However, internal problems in the Italian government prevail over the issue of relations with foreign countries. The government in Italy is unstable. Every day there is some kind of problem which, if remains unsolved, can lead to the government's collapse," Fallico said.