Surviving but profits suffer

Second-generation Sino-Italian entrepreneurs fighting recession

Sino-Italian entrepreneurs' businesses have continued to post moderate growth throughout Italy's worst economic crisis in decades. Nevertheless, they are showing slight signs of fatigue, especially in the import-export sector, experts say.

"Chinese communities in Italy are also having to weather the crisis, since this is a recession on a European scale and most of the Sino-Italian entrepreneurs' clients are European," says Junyi Bai, president of Associna, the most important and active cultural association of second-generation Chinese-Italians. As a corporate lawyer, Bai also deals with transnational operations between Italy and China.