An analysis of the Organization of Italian farmers Coldiretti on data of the external trade by the National Bureau of Statistics of Italy in February showed that the food industry has registered an increase of 9.3 per cent of exports to the European Union and of 19.1 percent in the non-EU, thanks to the growing demand of the Asian giant China. In China, Italy exported food and drinks for a total value of eur 248 million in 2011, with an increase of 30 percent compared to 2010. Among the products that Chinese prefer, in addition to wines, whose exports reached a value of eur 67 million (in a record growth of 63 per cent), there are olive oil with eur 24 million (an increase of 4 per cent), cakes and cookies with 10 million euro (+ 20 percent), pasta with eur 5.3 million (an increase of 60 percent) and cheese with 2.7 million euro (an increase of 42 percent).

However, it is the Italian sparkling wine to have recorded the highest growth in demand in China, where consumption has more than tripled in 2011 (+ 235%), thanks to the presence of at least 2.7 million people with a personal net worth more than 6 million yuan (over eur 600,000) who appreciate Italian food, according to the report on the consumption of luxury goods by the Chinese, drawn up by the Industrial Bank in collaboration with the Hurun Research Institute (www.agichina24.it ). Despite the incredible progress made by the Italian food exports to China, the trade balance between the two countries is, however, still strongly biased in favor of the Dragon: imports from China had, in fact, a value of 589 million euro in 2011, amounting to more than double the exports of Made in Italy in the country. To make difficult the entry of food products in China are, in fact, still important trade barriers, especially related to health checks required by the Chinese government.