Vespucci travelling ambassador for Italy says Valentini

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 28 - The current state and the prospects for direct inward foreign investments in Italy were the focus of a conference organised in Tokyo by the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy on the occasion of the Japanese stage of the World Tour of the Amerigo Vespucci sailing and training ship and the Villaggio Italia, the multi-year travelling exhibition of Italian excellence that is accompanying the Vespucci in the major ports of five continents.
    Participating in the round-table titled "Invest in Italy: where innovating is tradition" were Deputy Business and Made in Italy Minister Valentino Valentini, Japanese Deputy Minister for the Economy, Trade and Industry Nobuhiro Yoshida, Italian Ambassador to Japan Gianluigi Benedetti, the Commissioner General for Italy at Expo Osaka 2025, Mario Andrea Vattani, and Amedeo Teti, the head of the Italian government's Business Department and coordinator of its foreign investment attraction office.
    Also present were the representatives of some of the major Japanese companies present in our country: Denso, Hitachi, Ihi, Marelli Holdings, Marubeni, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Nippon Sanso, NTT Data and Shionogi.
    The Japanese stakeholders were shown both the new opportunities for investing in Italy, in a crucial phase of industrial and technological transformation towards a sustainable and digitised economy, and the activity of the new one-stop office "Invest in Italy", the unique interface at a national level for foreign investors which accompanies them and supports them in all the procedures and processes needed for the concrete realisation of the investment.
    "We are here with a piece of Italy, and the Vespucci, a travelling ambassador, to showcase our firms, but above all to tell you: come to Italy to invest," said Deputy Minister Valentini.
    "Italy is ready to welcome businesses with a renewed legislative and administrative apparatus, and also banks on the historic friendship underpinning relations between the two countries, which is reinforced each day in its collaboration and in what Japanese businesses do in Italy".
    Bilateral relations between Italy and Japan have intensified significantly over the last few years, with 557 direct inward Japanese investments in Italy that employ over 58,000 workers and generate an overall turnover of over 31 billion euros. The ties between the two countries received new impetus from the signing of a "strategic partnership" in January 2023 by Premier Giorgia Meloni and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
    "Our governments have a firm intention to further promote collaboration between Italy and Japan in trade, industry and investments," said Deputy Minister Yoshida.
    "Collaboration between firms is just as keen and businesses can also take advantage of the events that await us in the next few months in order to further develop their relations, starting with the Expo Osaka and then on the occasion of the Winter Olympics at Milan-Cortina in 2026". (ANSA).