Interaction with Daniele Mancini, Italian Ambassador to India

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On 1^st August 2013, VIF welcomed the Italian Ambassador to India, Daniele Mancini for an interaction session. Mr Ajit Doval, KC, Director VIF, initiated the interaction session by briefing Amb Mancini about the aims and achievements of the Vivekananda International Foundation.

Amb Mancini expressed his frank thoughts on global issues that concern both India and Italy. Talking of global issues, he highlighted that these issues cannot be tackled separately today and that they all are interconnected which requires a broader spectrum of viewing them and calls for a collective action.

On the bilateral economic relations between India and Italy, Amb Mancini argued that tremendous amount of work needs to be done. Italy’s trade with India stands only at $8.5 billion. Comparing that with a small nation like Romania, he said Italy has a trade worth $ 12 billion. He mentioned that the tremendous untapped potential of developing relations between India and Italy was the precise reason why he chose to be in India. Amb Mancini expressed his pity at the failure in the early negotiation for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Europe and hoped that the process will gain momentum after the completion of 2014 general elections in India.

Highlighting the situation in Italy, he admitted that Italy is still in deep recession. Even though Italy is expected to come out of recession by the end of the year, it has lost 5-6 % of its GDP, which is more than the total GDP of Greece. This has had bad effect on the people of Italy, especially the elderly and younger generations. He expressed that these difficult times could well be the platform for forging even stronger relations with a country as big as India. The talk was followed by a session of questions and answers which further explored Italy’s situation with respect to developments in Europe, in Arab world and globally.

Mr Ajit Doval thanked Amb Mancini for his visit and expressed hope of having more interactions with not just the Ambassador but other scholars and think tanks from Italy in order to facilitate a better geopolitical, economic and cultural understanding of each other.