The Italian Government meets with The People’s Republic of China

Minister Luigi Nicolais has agreed on a five-year cooperation project for PA training with the Executive Vice President of the Chinese Central Party School, and has assigned the role of project coordinator to the President of Formez, Mr. Carlo Flamment. Each year, for two weeks, 400 students will come to Italy to attend ad-hoc training courses concerning specific topics: pension reform, healthcare, civil protection, environment and others. On Tuesday July 17th 2007, the Minister for Public Administration Reform and Innovation (Ministro per le Riforme e l’Innovazione della P.A.) Hon. Luigi Nicolais met with the top management of the Central School of the Communist Party at Palazzo Vidoni, to respond to the training and vocational re-qualification needs proposed by Mr. Sun Qingju, Executive Vice President of the Beijing School. The study visit was realized in the ambit of the activities provided by the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Formez and the Chinese Central Party School four years ago and Rome is the first institutional stage. The high-profile delegation was welcomed at the Quirinale, at the Ministry of Economy by the Vice-minister, Hon. Vincenzo Visco and at the Ministry for Public Administration Reform and Innovation by Minister Nicolais. The delegation also visited Formez and the Higher School of Public Administration. The national secretary of the “Democratici di Sinistra” (left-wing democratic party) Hon. Piero Fassino gave a warm welcome to the Asiatic delegation who together with the President of Formez, Mr. Carlo Flamment, agreed to the proposal of Executive Vice President Sun Qingju to boost collaboration between the two countries in the field of training and technical assistance for the process of social reform in China. Hon. Fassino said “On our part, there is a great interest in establishing an increasingly constant and endurable collaboration with China, in as much as the actual problems to be faced are the same. Globalization has led to an international opening and this demands global strategies as well. Today, a government cannot solve problems by itself, but feels the need to create a system of governance at international level. This is only possible through sharing and dialogue between countries. For this reason, we consider your study visit to Italy under the coordination of Formez, so interesting because now as never before training can provide answers for all of us”. The five-year agreement involves Formez (lead structure and coordinator of the initiative), The Higher School for Public Administration, the School of Finance and the School for Internal Affairs. During the meeting at Palazzo Vidoni, Minister Nicolais explained that “President Flamment will play the role of project director in the training initiative with my personal support and that of our Under-secretary Mr. Giampiero Scanu. The project may be part of the agreement between our Council President Hon. Romano Prodi and the President of your Republic Mr. Hu Jintao, and this will be of great importance in understanding the reciprocal public structures in order to improve our way of working”. During the meeting, training methods for the start-up of the project will be discussed in detail. Executive Vice President, Mr. Sun Qingju declared: “The idea that we have proposed, which is also the result of various study visits and in-depth analysis carried out in your country over the last four years and coordinated by Formez, is to send about 400 students a year to Italy for two weeks each to attend ad-hoc training courses concerning specific topics of interest. We are thinking about pension reform, healthcare, civil protection, environment and all the innovative models you intend to propose. Such an ambitious project would hugely contribute to modernizing our administration and above all, would open the minds our students, who range from general directors from all ministries, to business managers and new graduates ready to undertake a public career”. After evoking the experiences and competencies of Formez about the functioning of local entities and the secondment offered for reforms, President of Formez Carlo Flamment added: “Training will utilize audio-visual techniques and will take place in no more than two of the Formez branches so as to optimize students mobility time lengths”. He continued: “The project will proceed for 5 or 6 years with two sessions to be held in May and November. It may be a framework agreement with the Chinese Central School while from year to year the topics of study will be arranged and identified through group discussion. Executives will be trained in compliance with the European models as well as administrative best practices”.