Visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping said Friday that there is bright prospects for both China and Italy to broaden cooperation in economy, trade, investment and in particular the small- and medium- sized enterprises (SME) because of the strong mutual supplement between the two countries.

At a gathering of businessmen from China and Italy, the Chinese vice president said the three-year action plan for enhancing Sino- Italian economic cooperation, which was signed by the two governments in Rome, set the framework of cooperation fields including SME collaboration and put forward many practical policy measures.

Addressing the gala banquet of businessmen, Xi said the three- year action plan should be a vital opportunity for business circles of the two countries to jointly create new situation of Sino-Italian economic and trade cooperation in order to bring about more practical benefits for peoples of the two countries.

Noting that Italy has been regarded as the kingdom of the SME in the world where the SME accounts for over 98 percent of its total firms, Xi said some Chinese provinces such as Zhejiang province, where Xi used to work as the top leader, had already launched cooperation projects with SMEs in Italy.

On current economic situation in China, the vice president said China is in the period of rapid development in industrialization and urbanization. During this period, the upgrading of consumption structure and production structure is speeding up while there is a strong growth of demand both for investment and consumption.

Xi also cited some potential fields of cooperation in which Italy has advanced technology, products and management experience.

According to Xi, those fields include modern agriculture, high- end equipment manufacturing, environmental protection, innovation design, biological medicines and development of new energies.

The vice president is on his four-day visit to Italy. He attended the celebrations of Italy's 150th anniversary of unification on Thursday. He will leave Italy for Cuba on Saturday.