On his first official visit to the City of Joy, Vincenzo de Luca, ambassador of Italy to India, ticked all the boxes as he visited key ministers and businessmen to get the ball rolling on important economic collaborations. A visit to the Jorasanko Thakurbari on Monday was high on his list as a valued collaboration between Bengal and Italy — a country in which Rabindranath Tagore, according to the ambassador, is very popular in and had visited twice during his lifetime. Apart from these, de Luca also took personal liking to Calcutta’s “obsession with food and football”, both of which he likened to his home city of Naples. Excerpts from when t2 caught up with him on the sidelines of his visit:
What are the key areas of economic collaboration that you are looking to foster between Italy and the eastern region of India?
This is my first official visit to West Bengal and despite that being during the busy days of Durga Puja, we succeeded in having very important meetings with some of the ministers here — I had a visit with the finance minister, the chief secretary and today, I’ll be visiting the minister of industries. This was very important as we want to further the relationship with the government here and we want to enhance our economic partnership.
Our consul general in Calcutta (Gianluca Rubagotti) is very active in reaching out to the various business communities of different sectors. Of course our priority areas are those that are of priority to the West Bengal government because we work with them and those are food processing, textile, leather and jewellery. These are the sectors that the government has asked us to promote partnership with Italian companies. Both of our economies are based on SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and the difficulty in the past was to establish a direct relationship between SMEs of Italy and West Bengal because for them, it is not easy to invest directly in the foreign market.
There are some pilot projects where we have a multi-stakeholder approach and the integration of a value chain of the two systems of SMEs in Italy and West Bengal, in the sectors I mentioned before. On this project, now we will have a follow up of my official visit with a technical meeting in West Bengal in the coming months and we will discuss together with the relevant ministries here in Calcutta about the way to go on.
On our side, we are ready to provide training, a special credit line, visit to Italy and an exchange and sharing of technology, which have been appreciated by the West Bengal government because these are the needs of the SMEs here in Bengal. They are already in contact with some of our industrial districts but we want to do more and promote more partnership at this level. So this is the main purpose of my visit — to enhance the economic partnership with Bengal, starting with regions in Italy that have more of these kinds of sectors.
What are some of the areas that Italy is looking to invest in when it comes to cultural collaborations?
I was very impressed by Calcutta and really appreciate the city, especially for its culture and traditions. I also see a few similarities between this city and Naples, which is my city of origin. So I see two cities with very long-standing cultural traditions and a lot of contemporary creativity. This is also a focus we want to have in our cultural relationship between Italy and West Bengal. We want to work together on heritage that is not only about preservation but also about regeneration. This is the idea we shared in the meeting we had with the Chamber of Commerce, with many stakeholders regarding heritage. It is not just to preserve one monument but to regenerate the history of the city and make it a part of the city life.
It is important to share our experiences of best practices when it comes to the promotion and regeneration of heritage. At the same time, we want to work on modern and contemporary creativity in terms of design for fashion, industrial design and so on. So we will facilitate a relationship between the design and cultural centres of Italy and Calcutta.
Calcutta is a multifaceted city because it has the history of being the capital of a part of an Empire but also a part of the city that looks at the future with new towers and landscapes. We also see how the history and the contemporary parts come together in this city. The contradictions of the city remind me of Naples as the situation is very similar and I see a scope of creativity in this context because we have the traditions along with the young generations who want to express their creativity and innovation. This is unique and similar to Naples
Vincenzo de Luca
How was your visit to Jorasanko Thakurbari?
We are trying to have an Italian space inside Rabindranath Tagore’s house and we are trying to work on that. Tagore is very well-known in Italy but some Italian personalities like Antonio Gramsci, who was one of the first Italian intellectuals whose works were translated into Bengali... we want to organise some important cultural events surrounding that. So there are several projects, including the Tagore cultural centre, events at universities on design, on fashion, on movies and more. Italy is an important cultural power, like India, and West Bengal is one of the more active and dynamic states for both contemporary and historical cultures and traditions.
How has your visit to Calcutta been so far? What interests or endears you towards this region the most?
Calcutta is a multifaceted city because it has the history of being the capital of a part of an Empire but also a part of the city that looks at the future with new towers and landscapes. We also see how the history and the contemporary parts come together in this city. The contradictions of the city remind me of Naples as the situation is very similar and I see a scope of creativity in this context because we have the traditions along with the young generations who want to express their creativity and innovation. This is unique and similar to Naples. I would also like to add that I like Bengali cuisine very much. It is very rich in terms of flavours, tastes and spices. The fish is very good and the ingredients are really rich.
Football and food in the cities of Naples and Calcutta are true obsessions. In Naples, you find the best food on every street and even in the houses. They have the same obsession with football and my football team (Napoli) is part of city life. Everyone is always talking about football and Diego Maradona is an icon there, who is also very famous here.
Food is a big part of both our cultures. How do you see that playing a role in strengthening relationships?
We have a common obsession for food between Italy and Bengal. We share the same kind of love for the variety and richness of food and culture and that is why we want to promote more mutual information and tasting of Bengali and Italian cuisines. We have a week of Italian cuisine and this year, we have an important programme at the end of November too. But our dream is to restore and reopen Federico Peliti’s restaurant in the city (Federico Peliti had a famous restaurant in the region in the 1800s) with Bengali entrepreneurs and friends as a centre of dialogue between the two cultures of Italy and Bengal.
What are some of your immediate plans in the city in terms of cultural collaborations?
The immediate plans for business are regarding the SMEs and for the cultural sector, there are a lot. We have cultural events planned and apart from that, we will work on the meeting we had at Jorasanko Thakurbari and follow up on that. We will also have some events on design and fashion and some more on food.