Padoan China mission nets 2-bln euro-investment in CDP

Deal latest in rash of 'Marco Polo effect' Chinese acquisitions

(ANSA) - Beijing, July 24 - An agreement Thursday for sale of a 35% share in Cdp-Reti to State Grid Corporation of China reflects an increasing trend for Chinese investment in Italy in what some experts have dubbed the "Marco Polo effect". The agreement between Sgcc and the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (Cdp) worth some 2 billion euros is the main result of an Italian trade visit under way in China led by Treasury Minister Pier Carlo Padoan accompanied by Cdp President Franco Bassanini, diplomatic sources say.

Padoan underlined that while hunting for investors Italy is determined to meet a commitment to the EU to privatise State-run industries worth some 0.7% of GDP. "We are working on several different chapters," he said. The minister insisted on the need for long-term investment in both directions as a major plank of Italy's rotating chairmanship of the European Union. During the trip the CDP also signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Development Bank for promotion of Chinese investment in Italy.

Bassanini said managers of the China Investment Corporation (CIC) invited him to open a permanent CDP office in Beijing. One early harbinger of the "Maco Polo" trend - coined by authors of a study for the Chatham House think tank in London -- was the Huawei telecommunications concern, which opened a Milan office in 2004 and today has cooperation accords with all the main Italian operators in the sector. In 2012 Shandong Heavy Industries Group-Weichai acquired a controlling interest in the Ferretti luxury yacht producer with a 374-million-euro investment.

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, has bought stakes of 2% each in the Italian energy giants ENI and ENEL. Some 79 Chinese companies are believed to be doing business in Italy including more than 52 from Hong Kong with an overall turnover of 2.665 million euros, providing work for some 5,534 people, according to T-Mag magazine. is one of the giants of the Chinese "new economy," SGCC was founded in 2002 with capital of 200 billion yuan (some 24 billion euros) to manage domestic energy distribution and invest in the sector abroad.

The agreement will be signed in Rome by the end of July, marking "an important result" for the Italian trade mission under way in China aiming "to reinforce trade and investment relations between China and Italy, which are already good and offer many other prospects," Padoan said. On Friday the trade mission's final leg will be a stop in Hong Kong to woo possible investors from the former British-run territory.