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Friday, June 25, 2010
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On Tuesday, June 22nd, 40 Dutch buisness people met at the Scheveningen Residence of the Slovene Ambassador Leon Marc to learn more about the SDBP and its future Benelux Branch.
Invited by Leon Marc, the Slovene Ambassador in The Hague and joined by our President Tičo Zupančič and Jernej Šmalc, who manages the SDBP Benelux Branch project, the Dutch enterpreneurs learnt more about the great potential of the Slovene-Dutch cooperation and the support that both the current SDBP, as well as its future Benelux Branch can provide.
Among the participants, Fokker owner and CEO Jaap Jacobsen, as well as the Vlaanderen Groep bosses Ad and Peter van Vlaanderen were there. Karin van Rooyen, Honorary Consul of Slovenia, put some of the sparkling examples of the Slovene innovation, like the Pipstrel ultralight aircrafts.
The basic idea of the SDBP Benelux Branch, as put by Jernej Šmalc, is to act in both directions. To identify the opportunities in both economies and increase the trade exchange between the two countries, currently at some €700m, is the goal.
While the large companies have their own channels to act on both markets, the SDBP will concentrate its efforts to support the SME entering the other country´s market, but have no network today. This point is also crucial for Slovene exporting enterpreneurs, like Drago Vrhovnik, based in Kamnik, with his new brand of healing source water.
Networking is the key. The current SDBP network of some 100 members will serve as the base, but will increase as the new Dutch and Belgian prospects enter.
Standard services will be provided, as well as special support in two major axes :
- Standard services (newsletter, organisation of events, groups and visits)
- Optional services (contacts, organisation of meetings, mediation, consulting)
- Special FDI-support
- Special support concerning channels to EU-funding and contacts with the EU-administration
The second highlight of the evening was the presentation of prof.Miha Pogačnik, the Cultural Ambassador of Slovenia and enterpreneur. How to "infuse creativity into organizations through the language of music" is his specialty. "Music, of all the arts, reaches deepest into our experience and our solar plexus of learning and inner transformation", he further explained.
As our president Zupančič put it, the very positive reaction means a clearly expressed need to push the concept further. So the SDBP Benelux Branch will be enregistered in NL as soon as some of the remaining issues are resolved, the month of october seems realistic.
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