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Ambassador: More tourism and trade ties

Balanced trade

Bradanini also called for balanced bilateral trade between the two countries since China has a trade surplus of about 16 or 17 billion euros.

Meanwhile, a Ministry of Commerce official said that China should develop its import market in order to balance the nation's import and export volume.

"We're keen to transform China's foreign trade structure by enhancing the import industry and retaining export growth at the same time," Jiang Fan, deputy director-general of the department of foreign trade at the Ministry of Commerce, said on May 16.

The nation's total foreign trade hit 3.87 trillion yuan ($630 billion) in 2012, up 6.2 percent over the year previous.

The scale of imports expanded from $955.9 billion in 2007 to $1.8 trillion in 2012, an annual average growth rate of 13.7 percent, some 2.8 percentage points higher than the growth in exports, according to the ministry.

China is Italy's 10th largest trading partner, while Italy is China's fourth-biggest trading partner in the EU.

The bilateral trade between China and Italy is expected to reach $80 billion by 2015, almost double the $45.1 billion in 2010.

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