As a new immigrant to Italy, Wang Liping toiled long hours in a warehouse north of Florence, sewing clothing. In 1989, after two years working as a hired hand in the area's Chinese-dominated apparel industry, he decided to go into business for himself. He plunked down $35,000 to buy a container shipment of thread from China to sell to Chinese-owned factories in the prosperous industrial city of Prato. But when his supplier delivered thread that was too thick for local spinning machines, Wang was devastated: "I lost every cent I invested," he recalls. Six months later, a determined Wang borrowed money from a friend and bought another container load. This time, he managed to turn a profit. Today Wang, 42, presides over a thriving business selling thread and sewing machine accessories: Revenues were up 33% last year, to $720,000, while profits rose 50%, to $41,000.
China is becoming an export powerhouse, and one of its chief exports is still its people--a fact that won't change much after it joins the World Trade Organization. Prato is just one of thousands of communities seeing a surge of Chinese immigration, legal and illegal. The Italian city of 200,000 is home to an estimated 20,000 Chinese--an anomaly in a country where immigrants of all nationalities make up just 2% of the population. Prato's officials say the huge Chinese influx has been a godsend for the city's garment-assembly and knitwear industry, whose annual sales of $1.3 billion are growing at a nearly 20% annual clip. "That is an extraordinary boost to our local economy," says Silvano Gori, president of the Prato Chamber of Commerce.
SEAMLESS. Chinese began descending on Prato about 10 years ago, when the Italians granted a series of amnesties to immigrants who had entered the country illegally. Those with resident permits could then send for family members. Others were spirited in by smugglers charging up to $25,000 a head.
Prato's Chinese entrepreneurs have meshed seamlessly into the Italian economy, which itself is powered by thousands of small, family-owned businesses, many of which operate off the tax rolls. "The mentality of the Chinese is not far from the mentality of an Italian," says Giovanni Cortese, general secretary of Italian labor union CISL in Prato. "Our family-owned companies also work 11 hours a day when necessary." Prato's Chinese generally face better working and living conditions than those in isolated sweatshops around the country, where trafficked immigrants work 15-hour days amid hazardous conditions.
Remarkably, social tensions remain minimal. That's because Chinese immigrants have taken over sectors of the economy that were being abandoned by locals. As Italian entrepreneurs gradually shifted into high-value-added clothes, shoes, and leather goods, new entrants were able to establish a foothold on the industry's lower rungs. Unemployment in Prato is a low 4%, less than half the national average. "The local Chinese and Italian economies are feeding each other," says Celso Bargellini, a Prato immigration consultant.
Signs of growing prosperity are already visible in Prato's Chinatown, the third largest in Europe after Paris and Milan. Delivery trucks bustle through streets dotted with immigrant-owned computer stores, cell-phone shops, and jewelry stores. And city officials are now designing programs to integrate the largely reclusive Chinese community and companies into the social and economic mainstream. When factory inspections uncover unsafe conditions, union leaders work with Chinese owners to change their practices. The city is also building housing for immigrant workers, many of whom sleep in the factories or warehouses where they work.
Integration takes place fastest, of course, among the young. Matteo Ye was 11 in 1989 when his mother moved the family from China to Prato to join a relative. While his mother and sister spent their days sewing, the boy completed elementary and secondary school. Ye, now 22, works for an Italian labor union as an immigrant counselor. "We Chinese like to globalize ourselves," says the bicultural Ye, sitting in front of a computer flashing a screen-saver message in Chinese. "If Chinese have some money, they move abroad to enrich their minds." As far as the business leaders of Prato are concerned, the enrichment is mutual.
By Gail Edmondson and Kate Carlisle in Prato, Italy
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