ADG ICPE and his team attended the Slovenian Business - Diplomatic Conference in Maribor

On 5 September 2012, ADG ICPE Janez Podobnik and his team attended the Business – Diplomatic Conference in Maribor, organised by Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Štajerska region (CCIŠ). The goal of this event was to enhance the cooperation and the support to the Slovenian economy/business community by the Slovenian diplomatic missions and consular posts abroad. Almost 40 Slovenian diplomats and over 170 Slovenian companies were addressed by Minister for Foreign Affairs Karel Erjavec, President of CCIŠ and CEO Perutnina Ptuj dr. Roman Glaser, Director of CCIŠ M. Sc. Aleksandra Podgornik and Director of SID Banka dr. Sibil Svilan. Afterwards the diplomats had individual meetings with the representatives of Slovenian companies and institutions.

Slovenian economy has always been very open, with exports of goods and services mainly to the traditional European markets such as Germany, Italy, Austria, France, Croatia, Poland, etc. However, in the current global financial-economic crisis, the Slovenian companies have to break-through to the new emerging markets around the world which have not been so affected by the crisis, especially to the BRIC countries (Brasil, Russia, India, China), Eastern European and the Gulf (Arabic) countries and also to Africa.

Business – Diplomatic Conference in Maribor (source: Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Štajerska)

ADG ICPE Janez Podobnik and his team had several meetings with Slovenian diplomats accredited to ICPE member states, candidate member states and countries that used to be ICPE member states from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The purpose of the meetings was to intensify the cooperation with the existing member states and to bring in new business opportunities also from other states.