Unindustria Calabria at Expo 2020 Dubai

Bringing business efficiency and expertise to the UAE

Unindustria Calabria is the Union of Industrialists and Enterprises of the provinces of Catanzaro, Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio Calabria, Vibo Valentia.

It adheres to Confindustria and adopts its logo and other distinctive signs, combining them with its own name, thus assuming the role of a territorial component at the regional perimeter of the system of representation of companies producing goods and services.

Unindustria Calabria is based in Catanzaro (registered office), Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio Calabria and Vibo Valentia at the corresponding territorial branches. It was created to effectively respond to the real needs of associated companies and to a profoundly changed socio-economic context within which the Industrial Associations aim to be the reference point for those who care about the relaunch of the Italian and Calabrian entrepreneurial system.

To date, Unindustria Calabria has about 2,000 associated companies, of which 900 operate in the manufacturing sector.

The activity carried out by the confederal system on behalf of associated companies has grown considerably over the years. In this context, characterized by continuous changes, associated entrepreneurs and the market require qualified skills and prompt response to their needs, through effective representation actions, authoritative legislative interface, transparent and recognized representation of general interests, an active role in promoting business culture, and stimulus for projects and initiatives aimed at the development and economic and social growth, an offer of targeted assistance and homogeneous and qualified specialist services throughout the region.

The production system is called to face challenges that, while involving further moments of difficulty, represent a stimulus and an opportunity to introduce elements of innovation and change.

The renewed political and organisational structure of the Association allows it to offer more and better to the system of companies associated with Confindustria, both in terms of efficiency for technical assistance and effectiveness in representing interests in the appointed institutional offices.

Unindustria Calabria offers competent institutions the availability of the business system as re-gards the technical skills, the ability and the desire to invest, and the desire to contribute to the development of Calabria in economic and social terms. At the same time, transparency is required, respect for rules and legality, productive use of public funds, effective management of community funds aimed at strategic and important projects.

We asked the President of Unindustria Calabria, Aldo Ferrara, what Dubai represents at the mo-ment for the entrepreneurial world of the Calabria region.

President Ferrara, where does the intention to promote the Calabrian industry in the Emirates come from?

The participation promoted in Dubai stems from the need to carry out, as industrialists, a strong action of economic-entrepreneurial diplomacy aimed at opening up the Calabrian world of production, towards a decisive push of international logic and exports. This logic finds fertile ground in the region precisely by virtue of the many opportunities that this offers and which, in the next few years, will also increase in consideration of the significant and numerous financial resources that will affect the various sectors and which will inevitably give a strong relaunch and of development.

Calabria, in fact, is exercising more and more attractive capacity for different types of invest-ments, not only from Italy, but from all over the world by focusing on high value-added supply chains in a territory, which we must not forget represents the natural pier of the Mediterranean and can boasting strategic ports such as Gioia Tauro, the largest transshipment port in the Mediterranean, and industrial areas with great potential that are strategic industrial and commercial logistic nodes. Similarly, infrastructural investments are already underway to provide Calabria with the strategic mobility necessary to accompany this route, with high-level motorway connec-tions, an efficient airport system, and above all, high speed.

And it is precisely by representing the enormous potential and with the spirit of promoting the great opportunities that this land offers (just think of the SEZs), that Unindustria Calabria aims to be an ambassador of new proposals and initiatives aimed at making Calabria competitive interna-tionally, leveraging on those that are the most dynamic sectors of the region, such as Tourism, which acts as a real brand of the territory, Agro-food, ICT, Manufacturing and the Construction sector.

The spirit is to build a modern industrial and economic system in step with the economies of the future, a system characterized by smart manufacturing, Industries 4.0, sustainability, which aims to strengthen the hi-tech sector, expand the network and attract investments. With this in mind, Dubai is one of the first steps in this direction.

Presenting the excellence of Calabria's industry in the United Arab Emirates. This is the purpose of the economic-entrepreneurial diplomacy mission of Unindustria Calabria, which, is led by the delegate for Internationalisation Rocco Colacchio together with Alessandro Cuomo, Regional Vice President of Small Industry, and Giuseppe Sammarco, representative of Ance Calabria, arrived in Dubai in the second week of February.

In an agenda full of qualified meetings, the delegation of Calabrian industrialists was able to meet with corporate groups and consolidate realities both in the various industrial chains and in the sectors of Tourism, Information and Communication Technologies, Construction, and F&B in order to promote and to establish collaborative relationships between the economic realities of Calabria and those of the Emirates, as well as with the other delegations present in Dubai.

Numerous events were organised in collaboration with the Italian Chamber of Commerce in the United Arab Emirates, among which the prestigious and profitable event was characterised by the projection, in English, of the territorial marketing video that has well represented the Calabrian production reality and its future potential in the most dynamic and prospective sectors.

We asked the delegate of Unindustria Calabria, Rocco Colacchio, for a comment on the mission in progress.

What does Dubai represent for the Calabria Region at the moment?

Dubai is the new world and the Emirates represents a point of reference for making Italians un-derstand in which direction to orient the country's entrepreneurial future. Today we are here pre-cisely because Calabria intends to do what the UAE has done in the last 20 years: dizzying growth rates, sustainable development, strengthening of strategic sectors, diversification. In Calabria, many entrepreneurs and companies already collaborate with the emirates, and, of course, the intention is to encourage this action and create new synergies.

What is hoped for from this mission?

Certainly new partnerships, the possibility of meeting Italian entrepreneurs present in the Emirate territory, but also foreign interlocutors with whom to start B2B, with the aim of telling the riches of our beautiful land and at the same time making the Calabrians aware of what has been achieved in this country in the last twenty years.

Dubai represents an opportunity for the Calabrian business world and for which specific sectors?

The agri-food sector assumes particular importance but there are already many Calabrian compa-nies, in different sectors, that export abroad, and our goal is to increase our products also in Dubai.

In this direction, Dubai is configured in its particularly composite fabric, both the social and economic one, and it is for this reason that it is necessary to ensure Calabria the same image and the same resonance enjoyed abroad by regions such as Tuscany or the Sicily. Furthermore, in the last decade, Calabrian companies have industrialised and invested in new technologies, in particular, the metalworking ones have undergone strong development and are characterized by significant links with various multinationals. This is a great opportunity to be exploited also in the United Arab Emirates as Calabria has grown significantly over the last 15 years and is, therefore, ready to initiate new synergies with the Gulf countries.

Operazione finanziata dal Piano di Azione e Coesione (PAC) Calabria 2014/2020 - Asse 3 "Compe-titività dei sistemi produttivi" - Obiettivo specifico 3.4 Incremento del livello di internazionalizza-zione dei Sistemi Produttivi