Manama, 4 April 2017 – UNIDO ITPO Italy took part in the annual UNIDO ITPO Heads’ Meeting, held in Manama, Bahrain on 3-4 April 2017. The meeting was a valid opportunity for UNIDO staff and the ITPO Heads to come together and meet with important partners including H.E. Sheikh Ebrahim Bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Finance and National Economy of Bahrain and Honorary Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Arab International Center for Entrepreneurship and Investment (AICEI), as well as representatives from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of Bahrain.

The meeting also provided an opportunity to discuss the ITPO business plan and strategic framework for the coming years and served as a platform to discuss a range of issues related to investment promotion and technology transfer.

Mr. Calzadilla-Sarmiento, Director of the UNIDO Department of Trade, Investment and Innovation (TII), delivered a presentation on TII’s overall strategy and on the ways in which the ITPO Network can be further integrated in it. He also highlighted the importance of aligning the ITPO Network with UNIDO’s Programme for Country Partnership (PCP) and of utilizing the Network to achieve the SDGs, in particular SDG 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure. Lucia Cartini, UNIDO ITPO Coordinator, presented the ITPO Network’s business plan, which will be validated by all ITPOs this year.

Within this framework, ITPO Italy presented the main achievements of 2016 and the upcoming activities of 2017, underlining the efforts of the Office in several Countries and in different sectors.