Italy to offer defunct Stellantis brands to Chinese automakers, report says

ROME : Italy’s authorities is brooding about taking up by decree defunct auto manufacturers owned by Stellantis, and offering them to Chinese language corporations to support them to predicament up factories in Italy, Il Sole 24 Ore day-to-day reported on Friday.

The thought would procure the Innocenti and Autobianchi manufacturers, both shut down in the 1990s.

Innocenti became once accepted in the 1960s and Nineteen Seventies for producing an Italian model of the British Mini, before it became once taken over by Fiat, now half of Stellantis. Former Fiat unit Autobianchi produced upmarket metropolis autos such because the A112 and Y10.

The newspaper acknowledged Italy’s industry minister has registered variations of the 2 manufacturers on the national patents and manufacturers position of job, using utterly different graphics from these registered by the Stellantis neighborhood.

The industry ministry, which in accordance with the describe is finding out the switch, became once no longer on hand for comment. Stellantis urged Reuters it had seen the media reviews but had no longer been urged by the authorities about any such plans.

Il Sole acknowledged the authorities’s appropriation could presumably well be made imaginable beneath a legislation passed in December and a draft enforcing decree, beneath examination by the Court docket of Auditors, touching on manufacturers which were unused for no longer no longer up to 5 years.

As soon as beneath authorities support an eye on, they could presumably well be given to “corporations, including international ones, that intend to make investments in Italy or switch to Italy manufacturing activities situated out of the country,” the legislation says.

Top Minister Giorgia Meloni’s nationalist authorities has for months been at loggerheads with Fiat-mum or dad Stellantis, accusing the automaker of neglecting its historic production bases in Italy.

It is engaged in talks with the neighborhood, the nation’s sole main automaker, to boost Italian production to 1 million autos per one year, but also acknowledged it wants to amplify the domestic industry by attracting a Chinese language automaker to Italy.

On Thursday, Fiat unveiled at its historic Turin headquarters in northern Italian its Serbian-made Panda model and accepted its 125th anniversary. Alternate Minister Adolfo The usa, who attended the event, again urged Stellantis to relaunch its manufacturing activities in Italy.