On the afternoon of September 1, a delegation led by Giovanni Tria, the Minister of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Italy, visited Shanghai Administration Institute (SAI) in the company of Italian Consul General in Shanghai. SHEN Wei, Executive Vice Principal of SAI, together with GUO Qingsong, Vice Principal of SAI, received them.

SHEN Wei extended warm welcome to the delegation and said that Giovanni Tria was an old friend of SAI and that both sides had kept close contact with each other since signing an official Memorandum of Cooperation in 2010. During the communication with SAI, Giovanni Tria has successively worked as Dean of the National School of Administration, Dean of the University of Rome Tor Vergata Faculty of Economics, the Minister of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Italy, etc., whats  more, has always, with the original intention, maintained friendly exchanges with SAI. China is the first foreign country that Giovanni Tria paid a visit to as the Minister of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Italy, and this visit was done before the beginning of the fall semester of SAI, fully reflecting that he attached great importance to this relationship.

SHEN Wei retrospected and affirmed the results of both sides9-year cooperation and exchange and introduced SAIs important task of training high-quality leading cadres and civil servants in building Shanghai as an international financial center. He said that SAI and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Italy had a broad space for cooperation in increasing financial knowledge and developing scientific and technological innovation awareness. For example, SAI needed to learn from developed countries like Italy in terms of the formulation of financial rules, building of a credit system and a complete financing system, and others. While further opening up the financial field, China should strengthen intellectual property protection and have a huge demand for training of financial practitioners. Thereby he hoped that both sides would strengthen cooperation in the above areas to joint-train high-quality financial leaders and talents. In addition, the integrated SAI began to carry out a new round of adjustment to the curriculum system and a new round of training for teachers, and specially established the TeachersTraining Academy to improve teachersablity and competitiveness levels and strengthen trainings for trainees. SAI is also improving the level and core competitiveness of its trainings and the overall quality and ability of civil servants and meanwhile cultivating more passionate, creative and responsible civil servants, to make contribution to economic and social development of Shanghai.

Giovanni Tria thanked SAI for their reception and spoke highly of SAIs civil servant training practices. He hoped to seize the new opportunities of Chinas financial reform and opening up to strengthen their cooperation with China in the financial field. At present, the Bank of Italy has chose RMB as Italian foreign exchange reserve. Next, the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Italy will strengthen the training for financial practitioners and thus certainly have more opportunities to cooperate with Shanghai, as a financial center in China, in this area. Both sides could consider first deepening Chinese and Italian civil servantsunderstanding of financial systems and rules and then conducting regular high-standard seminars and forums for the purpose of in-depth exchange. The Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Italy welcomes SAI staff members to Italy for exchanges and training and conduct thorough inspections with relevant institutions to provide professional and systematic trainings for civil servants in the financial field. Besides, Giovanni Tria suggested that the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Italy and SAI conduct cooperation in “Sino-Italian financial think tank” and fully utilize respective resources and advantages to strengthen policy consultation and research in financial field, to provide constructive policy consultation and reference for central and local governments. This initiative would further expand and deepen both sidescooperation space and certainly promote the implementation of more projects of both sides.

Its known that the delegation had visited the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China, the Ministry of Finance of the Peoples Republic of China, the Peoples Bank of China, the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee of the National Peoples Congress, National Council for Social Security Fund and Shanghai Municipal Peoples Government, Baoshan District, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Fosun Group, etc. before visiting SAI. 

LIU Dengxiao, Head of Foreign Affairs Division of Shanghai Party Institute, and other relevant personnel participated in the meeting.