ID:WOOD, kick-off meeting, 15.11.2012 ob 14h
mag. Sabina Koleša - pozdravni nagovor
Dear ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon!
Allow me to express you a warm welcome to Ljubljana, to ID WOOD project kick-off meeting!
I would like to thank Slovene wood cluster and our host, Slovene Forestry Institute for their kind invitation to say a few words at the beginning of this two-day kick-off meeting.
My name is Sabina Koleša, I am Director General of entrepreneurship, competitiveness and technology Department at Slovene Ministry for Economic Development and Technology.
There are many reasons why our Ministry joined ID WOOD project as Associated Strategic Partner.
One important reason is recently adopted Action plan for increasing the competitiveness of forest and wood value chain in Slovenia until 2020, with a promotional slogan “Wood is beautiful”. This Action Plan places Slovenian wood processing industry among strategically important and promising industries with, and this is extremely important, a sufficient amount of domestic raw materials.
It sets goals, measures, indicators and deadlines for the intensification of forest management and recovery and development of wood processing and energy use of industry wood remains. The main reason why we prepared this action plan is fragmentation or in other words, a lack of cooperation along forest and wood value chain.
One of the missing links in this value chain is definitely a lack of cooperation between industry and knowledge and research institutions. Therefore we see great potential in projects such as ID WOOD which aim to promote and to foster innovation and competitiveness, by sharing knowledge and stimulating innovation potential of companies.
We are very much aware that in projects like ID WOOD quite a lot of activities are dedicated to preparing certain analysis and strategies, to capacity building activities and to different promotional events, to name just a few. All this is of course needed in order to deliver the outputs and results of the project.
The aim of all these activities is or should be helping and reinforcing companies in our wood sector in the areas such as innovation processes, in building their competencies in design, marketing or environmental issues for example, also helping them to closely and better work with R&D institutions, since these are the areas where our companies and especially those in wood sector lack of competences.
Therefore I expect that in 2014, at the end of ID WOOD project, all partners in the project will be satisfied with their work during those two years and that we will be able to showdirect impact of this project on companies in wood sector, in the form of their increased competitiveness, their better knowledge, international cooperation and last but not least, their increased revenue.
To conclude, I wish you all a very fruitful kick-off meeting and of course I wish you great success with ID WOOD project.
Thank you very much.