"Made in China" label can fly high: Italian expert

Information, cross-country experiences, agreements on specific issues as well as lobbying initiatives organized by single companies or industrial clusters aimed at deploying new consistent public policies are among the possible actions to promote the revolution of the "made in China" brand, he said.

Costabile believes there are "huge opportunities" in the product and market complementarity that ad hoc alliances and co-branding in a global perspective can explore and exploit.

For example, many Chinese entrepreneurs are investing in prestigious made-in-Italy brands. The two parts could benefit from trading down their product lines towards a "mass and affordable luxury" market positioning or from trading them up with a "smart value" re-positioning, he said.

Based on new technologies, which enable big manufacturers to adopt practices that once where consistent only with artisans as well as handcrafters to reach global markets with customized products, "the made-in-ChinItaly manufacturing is not science-fiction scenario," Costabile stressed.

"This is a road to be hit, maybe starting with some product categories that already share a strong and long history, such as the silk, a market that since the Marco Polo era has had some made-in-ChinItaly products performing very well," he pointed out.

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