Opening of European conference on RTD for ships and the sea
Mr. Pandolfi sketched the broad lines of Community policy: Reinforcement of economic cohesion in Europe; foreign policies which take into account the new continental responsibilities of the European Community; improvement of the competitiveness of European industries.
He recalled that the Commission strategy for reinforcing industrial competitiveness is based on three main points: Efforts focussed on key technologies; a bottom-up approach, allowing for industry initiatives; special support for SMEs in the form of a venture-capital fund (ECU 100 million) to reduce the gap between the completion of research activity and the marketing of products.
In the shipbuilding industry the situation in Europe is now more encouraging than it was some years ago, Mr. Pandolfi said. In spite of the strong competition from Japan and Korea, European industry still has about 20% of the world market. The effort to inject new technologies into this sector must be pursued with the help of the Community. Mr. Pandolfi concluded that, like their Japanese competitors, European companies must learn to pool resources and research capabilities at the precompetitive level.
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