UBC Cities talk about business

The meeting of the Commission on Business Cooperation was held in Turku on 14-16 June 2006 and the representatives from the cities of Turku, Tampere, Kaunas, Panevezys, Siauliai, Gdansk, Tallinn, Viljandi, Vordingborg, Kolding and Nastved were present. They participated in the seminars, workshops and other events of the European Day of Entrepreneur. It was an international event closely connected with the work of the Commission.

The European Day of Entrepreneur was opened by Mr Kalle Euro, the Director of Business Development of Turku Area Development Centre. After the opening speeches of other honorary participants the morning seminars on environmental protection and Sea Tech started. There was the Environmental protection business-to-business meeting, seminar on Innovations and Cultures in Entrepreneurship, Sea Tech Workshop and Networking and Discussion Forum developing EDE into co-operation involving the Baltic Sea Region.

The Meeting of the Commission was held on the next day and was chaired by Mr Kalle Euro.

Many interesting presentations were delivered. Mr Vygintas Grinis, Head of the Development Programmes Management Division of City Development Department of Kaunas, presented the project of the science park "Technopolis", which is planned to be built in Kaunas. After the presentations a lively - Cooperation discussion about the activities of the UBC Business Commission took place. The Senior Consultant of the Industrial Development Council of Kolding City Mr Erling Winther suggested that it would be good to improve the work of an organizing committee consisting from three cities - past, present and future host of the Commission meeting. One more idea was to develop the activity of a permanent secretariat in Kaunas. It was also offered to involve entrepreneurs and relevant actors in the activities and meetings of the Commission.

Two cities from Denmark - Nastved and Vordingborg had kindly offered themselves and were elected as the hosts for the UBC Business Commission meeting in 2008.

Conclusions: There is no significant gap between Eastern and Western European countries anymore. The development in the Central and Eastern European countries is very fast and Western countries can learn from their achievements as well. Few years ago western members of the UBC were only providing information to the eastern partners, but now there is an exchange of information on equal basis. It is very important to develop the activities of the UBC Business Commission involving more relevant actors and improving its organisational system.