ROME -- China will likely play a key role in post-COVID 19 recovery strategies for Italian export-based businesses, the Milan-based Italy China Foundation said in a statement on Friday.

The statement came on the occasion of the launch of the Italy China Foundation's 11th Annual Report, a 300-page volume for entrepreneurs, titled "China 2020. Scenarios and Outlooks for Businesses," which was put together by analysts at the foundation's business think tank, the Centro Studi per l'Impresa (CeSIF).

According to the report, even if China's economy slows down due to the epidemic, its growth will still be higher than that of other countries.

"In this sense, it is possible to state with reasonable certainty that China's relative economic weight will increase," CeSIF analysts wrote in reference to the post-COVID-19 global scenarios.

Sino-Italian economic relations will play an ever-greater role in the near future due to China's economic growth on a global scale, the statement said.

China's economy bounced back to growth in the second quarter (Q2) this year as the country gradually resumed work and production after effectively containing the COVID-19 epidemic, official data showed on Thursday.

The country's gross domestic product expanded by 3.2 percent year on year in Q2, following a 6.8 percent contraction in Q1, showed the data from the National Bureau of Statistics.