Fashion: Ice in Shanghai to help small companies

Sistema Moda Italia, the Confindustria Fashion Textile Federation and the Italian Institute for foreign trade (ICE) will be opening an office in Shanghai to help small- and medium-sized companies to cope with the challenge of the large Asian market.

Set up thanks to the understanding signed by the former Ministry for International Trade and ICE, and with the contribution of Intesa Sanpaolo, the office will be run by Lily Li, a project manager from China. Being an expert in the textile sector, she will be in charge of monitoring the market, providing technical and practical assistance, keeping a check on counterfeiting and increasing trading, meetings and collaborations between the industrial sectors in the two countries at the production and commercial stages.

Li will report to Maurizio Forte, Chief of the ICE office in Shanghai, and Gianfranco Di Natale, the Smi Federation's General Manager. Promoters aim to offer a complete service that ranges from market monitoring to technical and practical assistance, keeping a check on counterfeiting, activities for fostering the increase in trading, meetings and collaboration between the Italian and Chinese textile-fashion industries at all production stages.

Thanks to the Institute's support, the Smi/ICE desk will provide basic information and specific support for the strategies for penetrating and consolidating the Chinese market.

(Source: Fondazione Italiani)