MILAN (Reuters) -&nbsp;Good&nbsp;relations with&nbsp;China&nbsp;are&nbsp;possible&nbsp;even&nbsp;without&nbsp;being part of the&nbsp;Belt&nbsp;and&nbsp;Road&nbsp;Initiative (BRI) deal, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in an interview published on Sunday, as her government weighs abandoning the project.
Italy&nbsp;is the only major Western country to have joined&nbsp;China's BRI scheme, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk&nbsp;Road&nbsp;to connect&nbsp;China&nbsp;with Asia, Europe&nbsp;and&nbsp;beyond with large infrastructure spending.
In an interview with Il Messaggero daily, Meloni said it was too early to anticipate the outcome of&nbsp;Italy's decision on whether to remain part of the project, which it signed up to in 2019, drawing criticism from Washington&nbsp;and&nbsp;Brussels.
"Our assessment is very delicate&nbsp;and&nbsp;touches upon many interests," said Meloni. The pact expires in March 2024&nbsp;and&nbsp;will be automatically renewed unless either side informs the other that they are pulling out, giving at least three months' notice.
In an interview with Reuters last year, before she won power in a September election, Meloni made clear she disapproved of the 2019 move, saying she had "no political will ... to favour Chinese expansion into&nbsp;Italy&nbsp;or Europe".
Meloni noted that while&nbsp;Italy&nbsp;was the only one of the Group of Seven (G7) rich democracies to have signed the&nbsp;Belt&nbsp;and&nbsp;Road&nbsp;memorandum, it was not the European&nbsp;and&nbsp;Western country with the strongest economic&nbsp;and&nbsp;trade&nbsp;ties&nbsp;with&nbsp;China.
"This means it is&nbsp;possible&nbsp;to have&nbsp;good&nbsp;relations, also in important areas, with Beijing,&nbsp;without&nbsp;necessarily these being part of an overall strategic design," she said.
Earlier this month a senior Italian government official told Reuters&nbsp;Italy&nbsp;was highly unlikely to renew the&nbsp;Belt&nbsp;and&nbsp;Road&nbsp;deal.
A first test of the right wing government's attitude towards&nbsp;China&nbsp;looms as Rome vets a shareholder pact at tyre maker Pirelli's, whose top investor is&nbsp;China's Sinochem.
China&nbsp;is among the biggest markets for most countries in the G7 group, particularly for export-reliant economies such as Japan&nbsp;and&nbsp;Germany.
At a summit last weekend, G7 leaders pledged to "de-risk"&nbsp;without&nbsp;"decoupling" from&nbsp;China, an approach that reflected European&nbsp;and&nbsp;Japanese concerns about pushing Beijing too hard, officials&nbsp;and&nbsp;experts said.
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(Reporting by Valentina Za; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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Italy PM says good ties with China possible without Belt and Road