Brussels, 27/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - In Marseilles, France, on Monday 26 November, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and ASCAME (the EuroMed chambers of commerce association) signed an agreement to renew their partnership for action to help businesses in the Mediterranean area (the initial deal was signed in Beirut in November 2009).
In a press release, the EIB explains that by pooling skills and action resources to aid the private sector, the two partners plan to bring resources closer to project promoters' needs to help create jobs.
The EIB says the deal is in line with its policy of supporting the private sector, which received 63% of the EIB's activity in the Mediterranean area in 2011. It says some 2,300 small businesses in the region have benefited from EIB aid and expertise in recent years, thus helping to create 30,000 jobs.
The EIB says the tourism deal, signed on the fringes of a conference on tourism organised by the EIB on 27 November, sends a strong signal to small business leaders, players and financial partners in the tourism industry in Europe and the Mediterranean. It is hoped that the deal will help get the tourism industry, so important for the region, out of the doldrums.
The EIB says the future of tourism faces political and economic uncertainties that raise the acute question of updating supply policy for the industry in southern Mediterranean countries and introducing new financial tools. It recommends new forms of tourism; for example, eco-tourism. (FB/transl.fl)