Demix Group strongly believes in the One Belt One Road project and agrees with the goal of boosting trade between countries that have so far had difficulties in interfacing and communicating, both intra and intercontinental.
The product categories of handmade products, Made in Italy and in China, are the following:
Furnishing
Pottery
Porcelain
Fashion Accessories
Textile Industry
Lether Goods
Jewelry
The real challenge remains to find partners who share this philosophy of fair trade, from and for China, in compliance with international standards of quality, human rights and cooperation between countries. As a result, job opportunities will be created, customers will be satisfied in previously inaccessible catchment areas and their resources will be used to the best of their ability.
For this European logic, of which Italy is the spokesman, Demix Group has chosen as the seat of its first project Amsterdam, holding the Netherlands as an international commercial hub being the port of Rotterdam (the most important in Europe), the preferred route of many oriental merchants.
OBOR Project Objectives
- Connecting countries, to facilitate communication between governments;
- Connecting people, to ensure exchanges between different cultures and educational systems;
- Connecting infrastructure, to facilitate transportation of goods and passage of people between different countries;
- Connecting capital, to encourage flows;
- Connecting economies, to increase trade volumes.
Ports of entry to Europe
Italian ports are identified as an important commercial and strategic center for the project.
The Mediterranean is the arrival point of the maritime route from Fuzhou in a south-easterly direction towards Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, passing through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea and reaching, after Athens, Italy. The ports of Palermo, Genoa and Trieste could become important nodes in the Mediterranean. In particular, the latter would have attracted Chinese attention because, by calling at one of Europe’s historic ports, favourable customs conditions would be created, a faster commercial route to the heart of the continent and direct rail access to the movement of its goods towards the European Union.
There are 19 institutional agreements between Italy and China, but for Demix Group they are particularly important:
- Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Italian Republic and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on Cooperation under the “Economic Silk Road” and “21st Century Silk Road Initiative”;
- Agreement between the Government of the Italian Republic and the Government of the People’s Republic of China to eliminate double taxation on income taxes and prevent tax evasion and avoidance;
- Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities of the Italian Republic and the National Cultural Heritage Administration of the People’s Republic of China (NCHA) on the prevention of theft, clandestine excavation, import, export, trafficking and illicit transit of cultural property assets and the promotion of their return;
- Action Plan on Health Collaboration between the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Italy and the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China;
- Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Italian Republic and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China on bilateral consultations;
- Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities of the Italian Republic and the National Administration for Chinese Cultural Heritage (NCHA) of the People’s Republic of China on the Twinning Project aimed at the promotion, conservation, knowledge, enhancement and fruition of the Italian language and Chinese sites listed in the UNESCO World Heritage List;
- Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Education, University and Research of the Italian Republic and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China on the strengthening of cooperation in the field of science, technology and innovation.
An additional challenge that China intends to address with the help of the One Belt One Road initiative is the transition from low-cost manufacturing to innovative, high-quality manufacturing. Over the past three decades, China has gained a reputation as the “factory of the world,” basing its comparative advantages primarily on low labor costs.
In the current environment, China intends to use OBOR not only to export superior quality goods, but more importantly as a means to endorse Chinese technology standards worldwide. This goal is driven by a broader desire to become an innovation-driven economy and a leader in research and development, effectively ending the period in which Chinese development has been imitative, that is, based on importing technology from abroad.