ISTANBUL

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will visit China this weekend, Beijing announced Thursday. 

Meloni will be in China from Saturday until end of the month at the invitation of Premier Li Qiang, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in a statement.

The Italian prime minister is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping during the trip as the trade volume between the two nations has surged past $80 billion.

Meloni’s trip to Beijing, first since she assumed office in October 2022, is significant since Italy withdrew from China’s multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) last year.

Rome was first and only among the Group of Seven (G7) nations which had joined the BRI in 2019.