UAE and Italy agree to forge new vision for strategic links: Italian FM

Abu Dhabi, Nov 21, 2012 (WAM) - The UAE and Italy have agreed, during talks yesterday, to crystallize a new vision for strategic relations, the visiting Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti, has unveiled. He said that Italy was keen to strengthen its relations with the UAE in the long run. Speaking at a lecture, attended by His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces at Al Bateen Palace, on the ''Economic Outlook of the Euro Zone and Italy's Role .... Opportunities for Investors'', the Italian premier said Italy, despite the economic woes it is facing, is offering slew of promising investment opportunities to foreign investors, especially those from the UAE and the GCC region. Italy, is the third economic powerhouse in the Euro Zone and the second largest industrial power after Germany. According to him, Europe had experienced spates of critical financial crises but has weathered the worst. Italy, he added, had adopted urgent economic policies for financial structural reforms to get out of the bottleneck, and create new potentials for stimulating growth. He said Italy would have a zero deficit budget by 2013 to join three fellow European countries, enjoying a peace of mind and a viable financial growth thanks to packages of financial, austerity measures, new sound structural reforms and flexible foreign investment policy targeting the GCC in general, and the UAE in particular. - Emirates News Agency, WAM