The meeting was held in cooperation with the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE). Participants to the meeting were able to share their views on business opportunities as well as on some constraints recently encountered by Italian companies working in Georgia.

Ambassador of Italy Vittorio Sandalli has opened the meeting stressing the existing significant potential for growing integration between Italy and Georgia, based on a deeply-rooted tradition of commercial, cultural and social exchanges between the two civil societies, as well as on the new perspectives offered by the current situation. Participants also had the opportunity to get acquainted with the strategy of internationalisation supported by the Italian Embassy in Tbilisi and with some concrete tools made available to Italian companies wishing to invest in Georgia, such as the "ARGO" project, an online CV-search tool containing the profiles of hundreds of young Georgians skilled in Italian language. Other services provided by the Italian Embassy in Tbilisi and ICE Office as well as a number of ideas for future cooperation with companies in the field of economic and cultural cooperation have been presented. Director of ICE-Baku Office Luciano Di Sante focused on functioning of new financing tools for investments abroad made available to Italian companies by the Italian Agency SIMEST. A networking cocktail has been offered after the meeting by the Tbilisi-based "Georgia-Italia" Association.

"Today meeting was a very successful example of the huge potential offered by what Italians commonly call "Sistema Italia", a system coordinating all efforts in the field of pacific international relations put forward by different public and private actors, including local governmental bodies, companies, universities, cultural institutions, associations, working to foster more prosperity based on reciprocal knowledge and understanding" Ambassador Sandalli commented after the meeting.