Alibaba to support Italian companies in China

(AGI) Rome, June 10 - E-commerce giant Alibaba will accompany Italian businesses seeking success in Chinese markets, promised the Managing Director for Alibaba Italy, Spain and Portugal, Rodrigo Cipriani Foresio, six months after the opening of its first Italian office. "With 420 million Chinese clients, mostly young fans of Italian products, Alibaba offers a great opportunity to open an on-line store in China and distribute products consumers are demanding," said Alibaba's manager. "Over the next 10 years we expect to reach 2 billion clients, expanding towards South East Asia. We want to bring these consumers Italian fashion, food and furniture, with a particular focus on wine." Cipriani Foresio highlighted how "Italy is the world's biggest wine producer", but that it "only covers 5 percent of the market in China". "Jack Ma came to Italy two months ago and met Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at Vinitaly. He launched the "Nove nove" event [Jiu Jiu, which in Chinese means both nine and wine], a wine festival where we hope to bring many Italian companies." "Last week Alibaba dedicated a week to Italian-made products," the company manager continued. "There are currently 100 Italian businesses with an online store, ranging from Maserati to Ferrero, Geox to Barilla, but we plan to increase this number." (AGI). .