To increase the competitiveness of the cross-border territory enhancing the cooperation among Italian and Slovene companies. This is, in short, the strategical objective of the project iCon, co-financed by the European Programme for territorial cooperation Italy-Slovenia. Fourteen partners, seven from Italy and seven from Slovenia, representing the main organizations that give support to local enterprises in the cross-border area, are going to work jointly for three years in order to achieve this vital objective for the economic growth of our territory.

With a budget of over three million Euros distributed among 14 partners, half from Italy and half from Slovenia, the project iCon, launched by the kick-off meeting held in Aijdovscina (SLO) on June 10^th, represents one of the most relevant strategic initiatives financed by the new European Programme for cross-border territorial cooperation between Italy and Slovenia. The project aims at increasing the competitiveness of the system of SMEs operating in the cross-border area acting along several directions: the integration of the institutions and SME support organizations present on the territory, the sharing and diffusion of the operative knowledge owned by the local development actors, the creation of advanced digital tools to support the business, the set-up of cooperation networks and innovative enterprise clusters, the development of actions of territorial marketing oriented towards promising foreign markets, the development of professional competences among workers and economic operators of the territory.

The project iCon, that will be developed in a three years time-frame, plans to involve several hundreds of medium and small enterprises in the cross-border area, which will be invited to participate actively to the training programs, the business missions, the workshops, the technical seminars, and the Business To Business meetings foreseen by the project.