Missions involving the entire national economic system, both those carried out in the past and those underway, concerning regions/countries of strategic importance for the national economy.
In particular, there are three areas in which all players should work jointly:
• Emerging markets
• Strategic areas closer to Europe
• “Bridge” markets in which to produce to serve third markets
In the light of this, since 2004, ABI has organised many missions in cooperation with the Foreign Trade Institute and the Confederation of Italian Industry and hosted many foreign delegations. It also organised a conference on the Mediterranean region, which included delegations from the 13 countries of the Mediterranean area.
These are the most notable missions and events organised by ABI:
China: December 2004
India: February 2005
Bulgaria: April 2005
Visit of a delegation from Jiangsu to Italy: April 2005
Turkey: November 2005
Mediterranean countries (Palermo): February 2006
Brazil: March 2006
United Arab Emirates: May 2006
China: September 2006
Visit of two delegations, from Brazil and from India: October-November 2006
Morocco: November 2006
Tunisia: January 2007
India: February 2007
Algeria: June 2007
South Africa: July 2007
Kazakhstan: October 2007
Visit of a delegation from Jiangsu to Italy: November 2007
Mexico: February 2008
Egypt: April 2008
Meeting with the Egyptian President Mubarak: April 5, 2008
Vietnam: November 2008
Visit of a delegation from Brazil to Italy: November 2008
Israel: November 2008
Upcoming events (first semester 2009): Russia and Mediterranean countries
Since 2005, 23 initiatives have been carried out with the participation of more than 200 Italian banks and more than 600 high level representatives of the banking sector supporting more than 5000 enterprises and institutions in 26 countries across four continents (about 28,000 B2B meetings have been organised). In order to finance exports and investments in the markets that are considered to be of strategic importance for the growth of our national economy, the banking sector allocated almost 40 billion euros, of which approximately 17 billion has already been spent; while 20 billion is still available to finance new business initiatives.
The majority of the total credit line that Italian banks made available – around 8 billion euros representing 0.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (this data refers to 2007) – was allocated to finance business initiatives in the Mediterranean region, which increasingly represents a strategic area for Italian enterprises.