Tokyo, 4-6 June 2018. UNIDO ITPO Italy attends the ITPO Heads Meeting, the annual appointment in which the Heads of the 9 UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion offices present the planned activities, new steps to be taken, and the expected improvements.

New features distinguish this year’s meeting, that for the first time was held in Tokyo in the last 10 years, with the participation of the Future Food Institute represented by Ms. Claudia Laricchia, Head of Institutional Relations and Global Strategic Partnerships: this is the first time that UNIDO ITPO Italy and FFI show up together, in order to involve the other international agencies in their planned activities, aimed at promoting innovation in agribusiness in developing countries.

UNIDO ITPO Italy, within the framework of its various activities concerning different sectors, dedicates a strategic attention on food & agriculture innovation issues. It is a path that begins from EXPO Milano 2015, where UNIDO ITPO Italy launched the 1^st International Award “Innovative Ideas and Technologies in Agribusiness” and which will lead the office to take a leading role also in Dubai 2020. Within this path, the 3^rd International Award edition 2019 will be promoted also by the Future Food Institute, enhancing also the 500 projects from 80 Countries already collected during the previous editions.

As a result, UNIDO ITPO Italy arises as unique office of the network which identified food innovation as a fundamental enabler for Developing Countries.

The Head of UNIDO ITPO Italy, Diana Battaggia, stated: “I decided to invite the Future Food Institute as a special guest to this important Heads Meeting because this strategic collaboration, as also highlighted by Lucia Cartini, ITPO coordinator, acknowledges a need from the Countries at world level: foster innovation to promote investments and increase the levels of competitiveness of companies and local communities, activities on which our office has played a pioneering role since  2015”.

“With UNIDO ITPO Italy we are planning long-term actions that will bring food innovation to developing countries”, added Claudia Laricchia. “We want to do this by involving the entire Italian system, starting from the Regions, trade associations, companies, universities and research centers, and all the relevant stakeholders, given that the Made in Italy can and must consolidate its brand position abroad not only on food but also for technologies applied to food”.

Part of this process is also the recent visit of the Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Mozambique, a country target of ITPO Italy, both to the Scuderie in Bologna, HQs of Food Future Institute, and at FICo – Eataly World, as well as the organization of the workshop "Food innovation in Developing Countries" held last week in Milan at Cascina Cuccagna at the presence of more than 15 Mozambican companies operating in agribusiness.