Florence (Italy)
Prato, a Chinese
community, located 11 miles north of Florence, has been the victim of
coronavirus. Since the virus hit the community last year, it is believed that
around 2,500 people, or 10% of the community has left. Chinese began to settle
in Prato, Italy around the late 1980s. They mostly belong to the eastern region
of Zhejiang. They created a parallel industry wherein they produced low-cost
fabrics. As per the reports, the Chinese in Prato suffered from discrimination
as they were alleged spreaders of the disease.
As per Simona
Zhou, she has left her 30 years old knitwear factory in the hands of her family
and has returned to Zhejiang when she felt vulnerable to coronavirus. Her
daughter, Teresa Lin said that if her mother comes back to Prato she will have
to stay mostly at home, while in her home town there are no restrictions as
China has been successful in combating the pandemic.
As per the
records, Italy has seen more than 124,000 deaths due to Covid-19 while China
has reported fewer than 5,000 deaths. As
Italy’s low-budget textile industry has been
affected adversely by repeated lockdowns, many Chinese have returned to their native
land because they were facing economic hardships. As per Marco Wong, Town
Councilor, many people in Prato want to go back as they see that China’s
economy is growing back and it has been able to handle the pandemic in a much
better way than Italy.
The Italian
economy went down by 8.9% last year and around half a million people have lost
their jobs. Also, Prato’s Chinese
community was hit hard because the workers were working in the shadow economy.
Source:
Reuters
Image
Source: Wikipedia
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