Stories

Letter from the Executive Director to our partners

29 November 2013
ITC News
Tenth TPO Network World Conference and Awards (Dubai, UAE, 3-5 November 2014)

Dear partners,

It is my privilege as the new Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) to introduce myself to you, as a key partner of this organisation. I believe that Trade Promotion Organisations play a central role in enhancing the international competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and are a key partner for ITC in delivering on its own mandate.

The emerging Post-2015 Development Agenda of the United Nations places considerable emphasis on SMEs as key drivers of global efforts to unlock growth, reduce poverty and deliver sustainable livelihoods. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for TPOs and ITC alike: to offer solutions that propel SMEs’ exports.

In this context, I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of ITC and Dubai Exports to invite you to the Tenth TPO Network World Conference and Awards in Dubai on 3-5 November 2014. At the conference we look to discuss trends in trade promotion and learn best practices from each other.

I would also like to bring to your attention the launch of ITC’s new web site and online TPO benchmarking and performance improvement platform. We have redesigned and restructured the web site to provide quick access to our most important pages, we have kept the page with information most relevant to TPOs (www.intracen.org/itc/trade-support).

Our new benchmarking platform is accessible at www.tsibenchmarking.org. It allows you to benchmark the performance of your organization against industry standards based on more than 200 indicators, consult information on good practices and case studies, set objectives and priorities for improvement and request ITC services. We expect the tool to become a major channel of communication between ITC and TPOs, as well as a platform for information sharing and exchange in the area of trade promotion and performance.

I look forward to our ongoing cooperation and to meeting you personally at the TPO Network World Conference in Dubai.

Yours sincerely,

Arancha González