Italy will protect its strategic infrastructure such as telecoms and avoid transferring key know-how as part of a planned agreement with China, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said.

Italy is studying mechanisms to monitor commercial accords signed under the "Belt and Road" memorandum agreement with China, as well as other measures to protect "strategic activities and national interests," Conte told.

In separate comments to Corriere, a spokesman for the White House's group of national security advisers, Garrett Marquis, warned the accord was "a political hazard."

China has denied its Belt and Road projects, which fund and build global transport and trade links in more than 60 countries, are a debt trap.