Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso was in Washington, where he met with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo at the Embassy of Italy, as part of a dialogue that also took place at the G7 with the United States, and which aims to make Italy a preferred hub in Europe for the semiconductor and digital industry, as well as the solar panel industry. Part of the project is to reopen mines of critical raw materials such as cobalt, which Italy possesses but which have been closed. This is, Urso stresses, a "response to China's penetration policy," because Italy cannot "go from subordination to Russian hard coal, paid dearly, to subordination for Chinese critical raw materials". If Golden Power allowed the protection of sensitive technologies and infrastructure through "prescriptions" until now, "a political posture is now needed". There is a discontinuity from the approach of the Conte government, which had launched the Silk Road, but according to Urso this will not compromise the trade part, given Italy's reduced dependence on China. "China was, is and will be a great trading partner," and Italy's goal is "to maintain if not even increase investment, in sectors such as electric batteries".
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