Bilateral table on agri-food export agreements and anti-counterfeiting checks
The Minister of Agricultural, Food, Forestry and Tourism Policies, Sen. Gian Marco Centinaio, today received the Minister of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China, HAN Changfu, in Rome. At the center of the meeting, the themes of bilateral agricultural collaboration, the dossiers for opening the Chinese market, controls on quality products and measures to combat agri-food counterfeiting.
“I am delighted with the excellent performance of bilateral political relations with China. We are in a very positive phase of our relations and we are now working towards the 2020 Year of Culture and Tourism Italy-China. Italy enjoys an extraordinary know-how in sectors such as viticulture, olive oil, dairy production and meat, but also research, innovation, mechanization and agricultural sustainability. It is important to develop trade, offer new opportunities to businesses and encourage the expansion of business relationships. Combining agriculture and tourism opens up immense possibilities for working together, as I was able to verify in the two visits I made this year to China. We aim to obtain concrete results also on an economic-commercial level and to strengthen collaboration in all fields. I hope that the agri-food dossiers still open will be defined as soon as possible: I am referring to risotto rice, apples and pears, but also truffles and wheat flour. In particular for risotto rice it is important that the General Administration of Customs of China has accepted the protocol of phytosanitary controls proposed by the Italian side. We would like to sign as soon as possible and start the long-awaited export from our companies ". Thus Minister Gian Marco Centinaio commented on the fruitful conversation with the Chinese high representative today, in which collaboration in multilateral forums was also discussed.
The Memorandum of Undestanding between the Ministry and Alibaba was also evoked during the meeting. The memorandum of understanding, signed by Minister Centinaio in December 2018, makes it possible to protect as many as 19 Italian geographical indications on the Chinese platform, to prevent the risk of counterfeiting on Italian quality products. The protection of Made in Italy on Chinese e-commerce platforms is a qualifying point of the ICQRF, the Department of the Central Inspectorate of Mipaaft for the protection of the quality and repression of fraud of agri-food products, one of the major European control bodies.
“Thanks to the agreements we have signed with Alibaba, we are the only institution to have created a specific web control activity for the protection of Made in Italy agri-food products against any form of unfair commercial practice. Cooperation with Alibaba is proceeding in an excellent way, we carry out control operations on all platforms of the group. Our products are of the highest quality and phytosanitary controls in Italy are among the best in the world. For this reason, as we have already done in previous meetings, we have asked the representation of the Chinese government for guarantees for the agro-food sector. For example, it is essential for us to protect the Mediterranean Diet, one of the finest food models, based on quality products whose reputation and image are known and appreciated all over the world ”, concluded Minister Centinaio.