China and Italy will jointly hold the Sino-Italian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Fair in September in southern China's Guangdong Province in a bid to boost cooperation between the SMEs of the two countries.

It will provide opportunities for SMEs in both countries to further cooperate, said Tong Xing, the executive director of the fair's organizing committee.

China and Italy signed a letter of intent in 2005, agreeing that the cooperation of SMEs was priority of bilateral economic cooperation.

The fair is expected to give Italian SMEs more chances to develop in China, said Meng Kaidi, the ambassador of Italy.

Tong said that most Chinese SMEs are trying to exploit the international market and the fair will meet their needs in this regard.

SMEs are becoming the pillars of the Chinese economy. Statistics show that the registered number of SMEs reached more than 4.2 million by the end of 2005, about 99.6 percent of the country's overall enterprises, which accounted for 59 percent of China's GDP.

(Xinhua News Agency April 18, 2005)