Iceland and Italy

Icelanders in Italy
The Embassy of Iceland in Rome, Italy, assists those Icelanders living, studying or travelling in Italy. The Embassy assists in various ways. Most commonly it issues emergency passports, drivers licences or things of that nature. It has to be stated that the Embassy does not provide any financial assistance of any kind. The Embassy also has a mailing list, which it uses to notify Icelanders about Icelandic events in Italy.

Business relations
The two countries have enjoyed decades of trade, although somewhat less is imported to Italy than exported. In the year 2006 Iceland exported goods worth 1,8 billion Icelandic crowns, which is about 1% of the total export of Iceland. However, it can be argued that numerous products exported to various European Union countries end up in Italy. Most of what is exported from Iceland to Italy is marine produce and Icelandic lamb. Italy is now the biggest import market for Icelandic lamb. Italy exported good to Iceland for around 14 billions Icelandic crowns, which amounts to about 3,6% of the total import of Iceland. The size of the Italian market tells us that Iceland still has plenty of room to increase exports to Italy. Much can still be done to augment export from Iceland to Italy. Many opportunities are still to be found and therefore further exploration of the various options and possibilities must be conducted. The Italian-Icelandic Chamber of Commerce has an important role in those future endeavours.

Cultural relations
Since the Embassy was inaugurated two years ago, it has tried to locate the tangents of Italian and Icelandic culture. It has also searched extensively for contacts interested in furthering Icelandic culture. It is clear that Italians are interested in Iceland and its culture and there is a large field unploughed in that area. The Scandinavian countries have fostered their cultural ties with Italy and therefore there is a lot of interest in Scandinavian culture and art in Italy, which can prove useful to Iceland. Good relations have been established with tourism parties in Italy and some of them, for example Islandtours and Icelandair in Milano, have expressed their interest in employing Icelandic culture and art as vehicles to promote their business and image.