China and Italy have great potential to increase bilateral trade and investment in the food and agricultural sectors, China's vice premier Wang Yang said at the Italy-China Agriculture and Food Cooperation Forum on Tuesday.

Wang said the economies of the two are becoming more interdependent, businesses are increasingly willing to cooperate and great opportunities exist.

The forum, held a day after China Pavilion Day at the Milan Expo, was aimed at helping Chinese and Italian food industry businesses increase cooperation, and was attended by about 300 business representatives.

Wang also made four suggestions for taking bilateral food sector cooperation forward: to build better communication channels, to align bilateral interests in food cooperation, to support trade growth and to increase investment.

The two countries' governments should use existing systems to facilitate good communication between companies so that business can be done in a smooth manner.

Secondly, there should be a good alignment of interests of both countries on issues such as food security, combating climate change and developing renewable energy sources enabling the countries to work together more efficiently to achieve common goals.

There should also be more support to increase trade scale, through ensuring the smooth process of customs checks, logistics and the flow of people. Wang said China's goal in bilateral trade is not to achieve a trade surplus, but instead it hopes to encourage businesses to trade more with each other so that consumers can enjoy the best food and more choices.

Finally, Wang said there should be more growth of bilateral investment in the food sector, especially to encourage the cooperation of small- and medium-size businesses. The two governments should eliminate trade barriers and trade promotion agencies of both countries should do more to encourage trade and investment.

Wang said Italian foods are becoming increasingly popular and common in China, and Italian products such as pasta and olive oil are very familiar to Chinese consumers, so he sees great potential for bilateral trade and investment growth in the food sector.

Riccardo Monti, president of the Italian Trade Commission, said he also hopes that many more Italian companies will be able to expand their businesses in China, making the best use of increased consumption in China resulting from the country's urbanization.

Monti said Italy has abundant world-leading agricultural processes and technology which can also be used in China to help it become more efficient in agricultural production.

Many Chinese companies already have partnerships with Italian businesses. One example is China's Bright Food, which bought a majority stake in Italian olive oil maker Salov last year, and another is the Chinese dairy firm Yili which has developed its PerfectLands milk brand in partnership with Italian company Sterilgarda, and this brand is now very popular in China.

Meanwhile, many Chinese companies are still looking into new opportunities in Italy, and one example is Beijing Tian'an Agricultural Development Co, which is looking for advanced food processing technologies from Italy to take to China through either technology transfer or joint technology development.

Lin Yuan, executive director of Tian'an Agricultural Development Co said Italy has very efficient food processing and packaging technology, which will help his company broaden its production range, extending from purely producing raw food to more advanced packaging.

An agreement to promote further food sector cooperation was also signed at the Italy-China Agriculture and Food Cooperation Forum by Monti and Jiang Zengwei, chairman of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.