Expo - EU–ASEAN Days to enhance business and investment opportunities

Handshaking - Photo credit: inertia_tw / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

The EU–ASEAN Days took place on 29 and 30 September in the framework of EXPO Milano 2015. Events and meetings have been organised in order to enhance business and investment opportunities between the stakeholders

The EU–ASEAN Days included:

  • a session where the European Commission presented tools to promote internationalisation and business relations between Europe and South-East Asia,
  • B2B match-making event, organized by Enterprise Europe Network.

During the B2B meetings European companies, public and private research centres, and investors had the opportunity to find partners for business development, licensing agreements, joint ventures and any other kind of partnership or collaboration to foster cross-fertilisation and new business and partnership opportunities.

The B2B meetings also offered the participants the occasion to:

  • know the latest trend, the key players and the new international initiatives,
  • get information about new business opportunities,
  • discover new products and technologies,
  • present own innovative ideas, projects and activities.

The match-making event was in the sectors of:

  • agro-food manufacturing (production technologies, automation, monitoring, packaging),
  • innovative and high quality food products,
  • food security,
  • food quality,
  • green economy on Agriculture&Food,
  • food conservation and shelf life,
  • other topics relevant to the thematic focus.

ASEAN - Association of Southeast Asian Nations

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a political and economic organization of ten Southeast Asian countries. It was formed on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Since then, membership has expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Its aims include accelerating economic growth, social progress, and sociocultural evolution among its members, protection of regional peace and stability, and opportunities for member countries to resolve differences peacefully. 

The member countries of ASEAN have a combined population of approximately 625 million people, 8.8% of the world's population. In 2015, the organization's combined nominal GDP had grown to more than US 2.6 trillion dollar. 

Photo credit: inertia_tw / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA