ETPOAs Annual Conference

Athens, 1 November 2019 | Enterprise Greece will host the 61st Annual Conference of European Trade Promotion Organisations (ETPOs) in Athens in 2020.

Enterprise Greece, as Vice-President of the European Trade Promotion Organisations’ Association (ETPOA), participated in the Association’s 60th annual conference hosted in Brussels by AWEX, hub.brussels and Flanders Invest & Trade, 24-25 October.

Georgios Filiopoulos, CEO of Enterprise Greece, presented the Greek proposal that next year’s annual conference focus on Europe's business cooperation with Africa. The aim of the conference will be to design and develop an ecosystem that fosters collaboration between businesses on the two continents, promotes the exchange of ideas, views and culture, and encourages communication between networks, partners, entrepreneurs and organizations.

In his presentation, Mr. Filiopoulos noted that Africa has experienced significant economic growth in the last decade -- above the world average -- and the European Union wants to support its enormous private sector potential and contribute to eradicating poverty. Sub-Saharan Africa includes rapidly growing economies and a rising middle class. For these reasons, Africa represents a highly interesting market with many opportunities.

As part of the conference in Brussels, Mr. Filiopoulos also participated on a panel about Brexit and its implications: examining the level of national preparedness in the event of Brexit with or without an agreement, as well as the tools the EU might employ to support small- and medium-sized enterprises.

At the end of the conference, an agreement to merge the Comité de Liaison (CDL) network into the European Trade Promotion Organisations’ Association (ETPOA) was signed, increasing ETPOA membership to 23.

Joining the ETPOA through the agreement were the organizations:

• Agrarmarkt Austria Marketing GesmbH (Austria)
• Board Bia (Ireland)
• BVE - Food and Industries (Germany)
• VLAM - Vlaams Centrum Voor Agro-en Visser Marketing (Belgium)
• AHDB (UK)
• FIAB (Spain)
• SOPEXA (France)
• Switzerland Global Enterprise (Switzerland)
• ITA (Italy)