BLB Law Firm has been invited to the opening ceremony of the Bank of Communication Rome branch, that took place today, November 21^st, at the Hotel Westin Excelsior.

 

Bank of Communication was founded in 1908 and, during the following years, it set up several branches abroad, so witnessing its far-sightedness about the nowadays well-known “Silk Road”. Not surprisingly, the Chinese railway system was built thanks to Bank of Communication financing.

 

The roadmap of the Bank of Communication constantly increased: in 2004 it was the first bank to giving welcome to foreign investments; in 2010 it financially supported Shanghai Expo; from 2009 to 2015 it managed the issue of Government Securities in RMB.

 

Now it is among the first-five Chinese banks, and the 36^th all over the world.

 

The Ambassador Li Ruiyu reminded the importance covered by finance as a vehicle for cooperation, as Italy already well knows. During the last year, the cooperation between Italy and China overcame 44 billions of commercial trade and now Italy is the fourth Chinese partner at commercial level. 

 

Italian Ambassador in China, Francesco Ettore Sequi, connected by Skype from Beijing, encouraged Italy to have a fast vision; “Carpe diem!”, those are the words used by the Professor Giuliano Noci, Vice Chancellor of the Chinese Polo at PoliMI, in the aim of summarizing the aforementioned speech, in which it has been suggested to take advantages by the preferential relationship with China.

 

The former Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni encouraged a proper use of the tax policies in order to support investments, taking into account some key areas such as IT, energy and transports. He mentioned the Chinese Presidency of the Group of Twenty, encouraging to continue the alignment with European policies. He underlined the increasing financial role both of Euro and RMB, reminding that the latter has been introduced among the reserve currencies and the special drawing rights as well. Thus, he mentioned the pioneering role that Italy has played in the European Monetary System: Italian banks gave a boost to the “ECU” (European Currency Unit) which led to the introduction of the Euro. Then, Fabrizio Saccomanni concluded declaring today Italian banks should not decline to seize the opportunities linked to the dialogue between China and Europe and between China and Italy.

 

Lastly, it was Niu Ximing, Chairman of Bank of Communication, to speak. Excited about this event, he gave many thanks to the reciprocal Chinese and Italian Embassies. The diplomatic relationships have been going on for 46 years until now, based on mutual confidence and support, as well as economic and commercial ones.

He concluded with his best wishes that everyone would do their best along this silk road.

 

BLB Law Firm was really pleased of having joint this event in which it received further and authoritative confirmations of the opportunity to continue building a bridge between Italy and China. From a legal standpoint, BLB enforced such a bridge assisting Italian and Chinese enterprises in mutual investments and business projects, for which bank partners as Bank of Communication is have always been necessary.