The Embassy of India in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 maintains diplomatic relations and represents Indian interests in dealing with the Government of Italy. The embassy's chancery is situated at Via XX Settembre next to the Palazzo del Quirinale. The Indian Ambassador to Italy, Arif Shahid Khan, died on 17 March, 2010. The Deputy Chief of Mission is Shamma Jain

Shamma Jain

Shamma Jain is the current Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of India to the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire with concurrent accreditation to Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.- Early life and education :...

. The Republic of India also maintains a consulate general in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 and hononary consulates in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, and Livorno

Livorno

Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...

.

India-Italy Relations

Diplomatic relations between India and Italy were established in 1947. India and Italy, both are countries with ancient civilizations and grand cultural heritages. Thus, nation building in a democratic framework while protecting civil liberties and encouraging a free press can be seen to be common features of both countries. This basic affinity has given both countries an understanding of each other's socio political ethos and the framework of developing unity in diversity.

Bilateral political relations between India and Italy are warm and friendly. There is a growing realization in Italy of the importance of India especially as an economic partner. Former President of Italy Mr. Cario Azeglio Ciampi paid a state visit to India in February 2005, accompanied by a high level ministerial and economic delegation.

Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...

 visited India from February 10-15, 2007. He was accompanied by Ministers for International Trade and European Affairs; for Infrastructure; for Scientific Research; and for Family; a well as a delegation of about 450 businessmen. During the visit, he met the President, Vice President and held talks with the Prime Minister and EAM. The business delegation had over 4200 business meetings. The focus areas included food processing, financial services, industrial design, leather and tanning and renewable energy. 11 Agreements/MoUs were signed in Mumbai, including between Fiat

Fiat

FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino , is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial, and industrial group based in Turin in the Italian region of Piedmont. Fiat was founded in 1899 by a group of investors including Giovanni Agnelli...

 and Tata

Tata Group

Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Tata Group is one of the largest companies in India by market capitalization and revenue. It has interests in communications and information technology, engineering, materials, services, energy,...

, ONGC and ENI

Eni

Eni S.p.A. is an Italian multinational oil and gas company, present in 70 countries, and currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of 87.7 billion euros , as of July 24, 2008...

, and BHEL and SELEX. Minister of State for External Affairs Shri Anand Sharma visited Rome from November
14-16, 2006. During the visit, he held wide ranging discussions with Italian political leaders
including former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Culture, Mr. Francesco Rutelli, former
Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, Sen. Gianni Vernetti, and former Defence Minister, Mr.
Arturo Parisi. The Indian Minister of State for External Affairs also had discussions with Senator Lamberto Dini, President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Senate

Italian Senate

The Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...

.

The first ever Head of State level visit from Italy to India took place from February 9-12,
1995 when Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro visited India. In the same year on May 23-27,
Vice President, Shri K.R. Narayanan, visited Italy at the invitation of the President of the Italian
Senate. President Dr. S.D. Sharma visited Italy in October 1996. Later in November 1996, Prime
Minister H.D. Deva Gowda visited Italy for the World Food Summit organized by FAO. He also
met Prime Minister Prodi and other senior Italian leaders. In September 1997 Prime Minister I.K.
Gujral visited Rome and met Prime Minister Prodi, President Scalfaro and Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

.
Prime Minister Prodi paid an official visit to India in January 1998 and met President Narayanan,
Vice President Krishan Kant and Prime Minister Gujral. Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee paid an
official visit to Italy on June 25-27, 2000 during which he met the President and Prime Minister
of Italy and also called on the Pope.

Commercial and Economic Relations

Italy is India's fourth-largest trading partner in the European

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Principal items of India's exports to Italy are textiles and ready-made garments, leather

Leather

Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...

 and leather goods, granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 and similar stones, basic chemicals, gems and jewelery, marine products, engineering goods, iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 and steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

, bars and sheets, motor vehicle

Motor vehicle

A motor vehicle or road vehicle is a self-propelled wheeled vehicle that does not operate on rails, such as trains or trolleys. The vehicle propulsion is provided by an engine or motor, usually by an internal combustion engine, or an electric motor, or some combination of the two, such as hybrid...

s, and auto parts.

Italy accounts for about 1.95% of the total investment approvals from August 1991 to January 2006, with FDI

FDI

-Medical:* FDI World Dental Federation, Fédération dentaire internationale. The World Dental Federation also have an , also known as the FDI.* first dorsal interosseous, one of the four dorsal interossei muscles of the hand -Finance:* FDi magazine, a UK-based publication that covers foreign direct...

 approvals of US$ 1.31 billion and a cumulative inflow of US$0.49
billion, which is 1.57 percent of total inflows. Top sectors attracting FDI from Italy including transportation (56.19 percent), food processing

Food processing

Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food or to transform food into other forms for consumption by humans or animals either in the home or by the food processing industry...

 (8.97 percent), metallurgical

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

 (8.20 percent), textiles (including dyed and printed) (4.57 percent) and electrical equipment

Electrical equipment

Electrical equipment includes any machine powered by electricity. They usually consists of an enclosure, a variety of electrical components, and often a power switch...

 (including consumer electronics

Consumer electronics

Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...

 and computer software

Computer software

Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....

 (4.45 percent).

Future prospects for investment and trade are encouraging, as India is increasingly being seen by Italy as an emerging economic power in the world and an important economic partner in Asia.

Indians in Italy

The number of Indian nationals (including persons of Indian origin

Non-resident Indian and Person of Indian Origin

A Non-Resident Indian is an Indian citizen who has migrated to another country, a person of Indian origin who is born outside India, or a person of Indian origin who resides permanently outside India. Other terms with the same meaning are overseas Indian and expatriate Indian...

) in Italy varies between 100,000 to 150,000.

Most Indians work on farms and in small businesses and industry, as well as in the Catholic Church. There are Indian professionals in northern Italy

Northern Italy

Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...

 and in the UN specialized agencies based in Rome, including the Food and Agriculture Organization

Food and Agriculture Organization

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...

, International Fund for Agricultural Development

International Fund for Agricultural Development

The International Fund for Agricultural Development , a specialized agency of the United Nations, was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. IFAD is dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries...

, and World Food Programme

World Food Programme

The World Food Programme is the food aid branch of the United Nations, and the world's largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger worldwide. WFP provides food, on average, to 90 million people per year, 58 million of whom are children...

. Much of the Indian population is concentrated in the Lazio, Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

, Emilia–Romagna, Veneto

Veneto

Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

 and Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

regions.