President Bachelet: “Trade with Italy is excellent but there are areas we could grow further”
During her Official Visit to Italy, the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, held a bilateral meeting with the President of the Council of Ministers of Italy, Matteo Renzi, at Chigi Palace in Rome.
“We have worked with the President of the Council of Ministers, identifying areas where we are making good progress and would like to extend our relationship, because although trade with Italy is excellent, there are areas we could grow further,” President Bachelet said in a joint statement with Matteo Renzi.
President Bachelet highlighted that during the meeting they had also discussed the agenda of reforms currently underway in Chile and Italy.
“We feel we have a splendid relationship as two countries that face similar challenges, as the Prime Minister has already noted, in terms of the type of reforms that Italy has carried out and Chile is carrying out, reforms relating to the political system and increasing the number of women in politics so that at least 40% of candidates will be female.”
Referring to the economic relationship between the two countries, President Bachelet confirmed that Italy has much to offer Chile.
“We can continue growing in the area of energy; we have signed economic agreements, the cooperation agreement between Chile’s national aerospace company ENAER and Italy’s aerospace company, which was signed by Minister Pinotto when she was in Chile. Also in the energy sector, ENEL is planning to invest US$5 billion in Chile by 2017, obviously in renewables – geothermal and solar energy,” she confirmed.
In her closing remarks President Bachelet referred to foreign policy challenges.
“We have discussed our continued collaboration with the United Nations and Chile has supported Italy’s candidacy to the Security Council. We also discussed the forthcoming renewal of the agreement between the European Union and Chile, a renewal process which began in April following a positive review of many years of successful trade and agreement.”