Premier Matteo Renzi said on Friday that he was counting on the culture sector to help create jobs and tackle the country's high levels of unemployment, particularly among young people.
"You can live off culture, employ people and create jobs," Renzi said at a summit of culture ministers at Milan's Expo world fair.
"In Italy we have a plan that foresees that a significant part of the youth unemployment problem needs to be tackled by cultural work," he said, pointing to plans to hire thousands of teachers in public schools and create jobs in museums around the country.
Official data on Friday showed that Italy's overall unemployment rate rose in June to 12.7% while the youth jobless rate also increased to a record 44.2%.
"Culture is the identity card of a people and not something that only applies to the past… it's not a story about what has happened, it is what is going to save our country," Renzi said.
He supported a proposal raised by Culture Minister Dario Franceschini to create a UN peacekeeping force to protect the world's heritage sites, threatened by extremists such as Islamic State (ISIS) militants.
"It's a good proposal and it goes in the direction of those who say 'we want to remain intelligent people, let's not resign ourselves to barbarism'," Renzi said.
Franceschini organised the culture conference at Expo to discuss ways to protect global heritage, especially in vulnerable regions hit by political instability, war or natural disasters.
Renzi said Italy had chosen culture as a symbol of its Expo because it saw the world fair as more than just a business event.
He said Expo was "a window on the most beautiful things that Italy can express, a moment of joy and sharing, a taste of the future of Italy and the world".
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