Rome - September 29th - October 1st, 2014
Between the 29thSeptember and the 2nd October 2014, a delegation of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority– SMEDA, the most important Pakistani agency supporting SMEs, visited Italy in order to discover Italy’s industrial environment and scout future collaboration opportunities. The delegation was accompanied by Mr. Ahmed Ghumman, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Industries and Productive Development of Pakistan.
The aim of these meetings is to present the potential of Pakistan and SMEDA services to Italian stakeholders in accessing the Pakistani market and finding local counterparts. On the other hand, the visit provided SMEDA with a detailed vision of the Italian entrepreneurship: delegates received the latest information concerning specific Italian associations and companies, learned more about the functioning of the Business Incubator and also received an introduction to financial schemes in Italy, in particular focusing on SMEs.
Some of the institutions that the Pakistani delegation will meet are: CNA (National Confederation of Crafts and Small and Medium Enterprises), Federunacoma (The Italian Agriculture Machinery Manufacturers Federation), SIMEST (Development finance institution dedicated to supporting and promoting the activities of Italian companies abroad) and Sviluppo Lazio and BIC Lazio.
UNIDO is involved in this Project which aims to develop profitable economical partnerships between Italian and Pakistani entrepreneurs, in order to support and valorize Pakistan’s industrial potential.
This visit was held within the framework of UNIDO-SMEDA-Italy Programme, financed by the Italian Development Cooperation and implemented by UNIDO, which aims to increase the number of industrial projects realized in Pakistan through the participation of foreign partners, in particular from Italy. To this purpose, UNIDO has established an Investment Promotion Unit (IPU) in the Pakistani city of Lahore in 2013, which has proved to be a precious support for the valorization of the Industrial potential of Pakistan and for the development of Win-Win business partnerships between Italian and Pakistani companies
Italy has always followed with interest the Pakistani market and in the last decades has gradually increased its position in this country, becoming one of the top ten global trading partners of Pakistan, and the third amongst the EU member States, after the UK and Germany, with a growing trade exchange amounting in 2012 to approximately 1.2 billion US dollars. Italian investments in Pakistan have also been growing and in the first 3 trimester of the current fiscal year (2013-2014) their amount was around 200 million dollars.