'Our government is already looking into this matter and we have assured the Punjab government that all possible help will be provided to such people in Italy.'

Italy, which attracts over 42.3 million tourists annually, wants to tap the tourism market from India.

'We are not geographically close to India but our ambitions are same and we share many similarities with this country. In fact, we have a long history of association with India and centuries-old ancient roman artefacts found here have proved our old links,' the ambassador said.

Italy is the seventh largest economy and sixth largest exporter of manufactured goods in the world.

Aboutbilateral trade, Toscano said: 'Presently, there is an annual overall exchange of business worth $8 billion between the two countries, which is quite high if we compare it to past years. Our target is to increase this trade to $10 billion. This is not a far-fetched aim and we are already working in this direction,' he added.

The thrust areas of India's exports to Italy are textiles, leather goods, granite, gems, jewellery, agriculture products and organic and inorganic chemicals. India imports machinery for precision tools, general machinery, auto parts and textile and granite machinery from Italy.

(Alkesh Sharma can be contacted at alkesh.s@ians.in)