Focus on training and business: SMEs at the Festival

11 February 2011 – Two conferences will be held, one of which will debate over ways of bridging the gap between high level training and business needs, through the start-up of effective collaborations and links between enterprises and high level education as the key factor to provide young graduates with the skills required by European enterprises. The second conference will focus on cultural tourism as a tool aimed at enhancing the sharing of cultural traditions among European citizens. The two conferences will be complemented with a B2B event aiming at developing business relations between our enterprises and markets in the Mediterranean area. Such events will be held from the 7th to the 10th of May 2011, in the framework of the Festival d’Europa, organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Florence and Promofirenze, its Special Agency and member of the Enterprise Europe Network, in synergy with the local business community and important players in the European economic/financial scenario. B2B meetings will take place for two days bringing together Italian enterprises active in the sector of agro-food technology and professionals of the food sector of the Mediterranean area. More in detail, the involved productive sectors will be: agro-food, food processing technologies (machinery, equipment, automation and control), food industry technology (industrial automation, hygiene and laboratory equipment, packaging and wrapping systems and technologies, labelling, traceability, food quality and safety, logistics, industrial liquid and solid waste disposal). The selection of professionals from the Mediterranean area will be carried by Promofirenze with the support of several Italian Chambers of Commerce located in the Mediterranean area, and of the Promofirenze office based in Casablanca, Morocco. The B2B event will be held within the project called “Italian Foodtech: dissemination of knowhow and business in the sector of agro-food technologies”, co-financed by Unioncamere (Confederation of Italian Chambers of Commerce), as part of the Fondo di Perequazione (Equalisation Fund) 2007-2008 – Med in Italy. “For many years Promofirenze, as a member of the Enterprise Europe Network, has actively participated on the territory on behalf of the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission, to enhance the development of EU programmes and policies supporting small and medium enterprises – stated the President of Promofirenze, Ranieri Pontello – We offer our experience to the Festival d’Europa to further implement the trade and industrial cooperation between our local enterprises and foreign enterprises.”