Brussels, 23/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, the European Commission unveiled a study carried out for the European Commission in 2006 on 'Effects on the European Economy of Shortages of Foreign Language Skills in Enterprise' by CILT, the UK National Centre for Languages. The findings suggest that there is enormous potential for small businesses in Europe to increase their total exports if they invest more in languages and develop coherent language strategies. The study suggests that increasing investment to develop language skills across the EU would produce far-reaching economic benefits, especially in terms of a positive impact on SME productivity and export performance. While the report confirms the importance of English as the world business language, other languages are used extensively as intermediary languages. In particular, the analysis reveals that there is a need for a range of other languages if business relationships are to be built successfully. Those cited as being the most important include the main European languages, such as German, French and Spanish, but increasingly also other world languages like Mandarin, Arabic and Russian. “Far from being an unwelcome cost to doing business", European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban, said, "investing in language skills can dramatically improve a company's business opportunities. I plan to place multilingualism at the heart of the Lisbon strategy for more growth and jobs.” The study will form the basis for the forthcoming work of the Business Forum, which Commissioner Orban intends to launch this year in partnership with European business, to understand better how language skills impact on EU trade and jobs. The full CILT study can be accessed at: http: //ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/key/studies_en.html. (hb)