Italy to reopen Beijing watchdog office

The Italian Institute for Foreign Trade will restart cracking down on Chinese companies which are pretending to be Italian, the Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

The Italian government plans to reopen an office in Beijing, as well as in Moscow and Istanbul, respectively in 2014 to protect Italian brands, with the annual funds for each office to be 200,000 euros ($270,000) to 250,000 euros, said the report.

Italy used to have 14 similar offices around the world, with three of them in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong Province. They were shut down due to a lack of operating funds.