MILAN, Italy, Oct. 1 -- China and Italy are going through a very positive moment of their relations, which was reflected in increased Chinese investments in Italy backed by more profound cultural exchanges, local authorities and business community said on Wednesday.

"These are great occasions to better know each other," Milan's Councillor for Commerce Franco D'Alfonso said at a reception hosted by the Chinese Consulate in Milan to mark the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Apart from Chinese Consul General Liao Juhua, present at the event were Italian authorities, representatives of diplomatic corps, directors of the media, top business executives, entrepreneurs, lawmakers and professors.

Milan aims to be "the Italian door for China," D'Alfonso noted, highlighting the increased Chinese investments and tourist flows in the northern business capital.

According to figures of the Milan-based Italy China Foundation, at the end of last year more than 90 groups from the Chinese mainland had stakes in Italian companies, nearly 20 percent more compared with 2012. And various new investments have been announced since the beginning of 2014.

"Compared to a few years ago, there are many more professional investors from China," Carlo Montenovesi, founder and chairman of the Milan-based Cross Border, told Xinhua. The firm was one of the first businesses to have offered independent M&A advisory services in Italy since 1990.

"At the beginning there were some state-owned enterprises not so much experienced in dealing with acquisition of assets in Italy. Today we have started seeing private Chinese investors who use professional qualified advisors," he said.

Montenovesi was convinced that in the future "the level and quality of Chinese investors will further grow, because the cultural background towards making foreign investments abroad is improving significantly."

In fact, "openness of China, not only economic but also cultural" is what an Italian business consultant, Maurizio Bruno, has underlined while attending the meeting.

"It is not the first time that I take part in the celebrations of China's National Day," he told Xinhua.

"If I had to choose a person to talk with on this planet, I would definitely choose (one from) China," Bruno went on saying. "It is the people that have opened a huge opera theater in Beijing and bought the books of Homer and Virgil. Don't we have more things to share with them than with other countries?" he noted.

Marco Torta, a commercial lawyer, agreed.

"I am here tonight because I think it is very important, especially for professionals, to learn something more about this great country which has played an increasing role on the global scenario," he told Xinhua.

"Italians tend to be a little closed to the outside world and have to learn instead to see Chinese differently from how they are often stereotyped," he concluded.