In line with the requirements of the European E-Business Pages project, the Limassol Chamber of Commerce and Industry organized and hosted a Business Forum with participants from both Cyprus and four Balkan countries. The two-year E-Business Pages program, of which the Limassol Chamber is the Cypriot partner, is part of Interreg Balkan Med's transnational and territorial cooperation instrument and its main purpose is to strengthen competitiveness and encourage cooperation between the Balkan countries and Cyprus at business level. In this context, 20 business representatives from Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and North Macedonia (five from each country) and 10 representatives of the bodies participating as partners together with the Limassol Chamber in E-Business Pages.
The opening of the Conference, which was completely successful, was made by the Forum Coordinator and Limassol Chamber Senior Officer Nikolas Iordanou. A greeting by the Chamber President Costas Galatariotis followed, read out by the Chamber Director. Mr. Galatariotis referred to the importance of Interreg Balkan programs in strengthening transnational cooperation between the Balkan countries and Cyprus, while pointing out the tools created through the E-Business Pages project to achieve this goal, such as the online platform comprising more than 1200 profiles of enterprises and organizations from the five countries participating in E-Business Pages.
The conference program also included two presentations by distinguished speakers focusing on the major areas of Blue Economy and Women Entrepreneurship. Manolis Nicolaides, a professor at Frederick University, analyzed the prospects and challenges of the Blue Economy and Lina Tsaltabasi, President of the Organization of Women Entrepreneurs of Greece and CEO of the OECON Group, spoke about the role of female entrepreneurship as a development tool for a sustainable economy. There followed short presentations from the foreign companies involved in the conference about their business activities. The conference was completed with a total of 40 business-to-business meetings, exploring possible business partnerships.
