On 29 and 30 March 2023, the European Cluster Collaboration Platform, on behalf of the European Commission and in partnership with the Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency, the Union of Slovak Clusters, the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance and the Enterprise Europe Network, organised the Clusters meet Regions conference in Košice, Slovakia.
Designed to integrate Ukrainian clusters and companies into EU value chains, the event represented the first EU-led business cooperation gathering between the EU and Ukraine. All attendees, of which 200 participated onsite and 100+ online, were united under the shared goal of fostering collaboration and strengthening ties between the EU and Ukrainian clusters and companies.
The event saw speeches from Eduard Heger, Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic; Denys Shmyhal, Prime Minister of Ukraine; Peter Švec, Deputy Minister of Economy for the Slovak Republic and Maive Rute, Deputy Director-General of DG GROW, European Commission.
The event provided a new impetus for reinforced EU-Ukraine industrial collaboration with the resounding message delivered by Ukrainian clusters and companies being: “To support us, do business with us” (Olga Trofymova, Head of Internationalization program of the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance, CEO of UAMC).
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