ROME, Aug 18: Chinese businesses are booming in Italy, where their numbers rose 26 per cent from 2008 to 2011, but they face criticism for harming local industry and violating workers’ rights, a study said on Saturday.

At the end of 2011, Italy had 58,238 Chinese-owned businesses, concentrated especially in the retail, manufacturing, and hotel and restaurant sectors, said the study published by the CGIA business association, which got its figures from the country’s chambers of commerce.

The number of Chinese businesses rose 7.7 per cent in 2010-2011 alone, and Chinese nationals in Italy sent 7.87 billion euros back to China during the four years from 2008 to 2011, the study found.

But CGIA secretary Giuseppe Bortolussi accused Chinese entrepreneurs of many cases of violating workers’ rights, evading taxes, breaking sanitation rules and damaging local industry.—AFP