The provision of trade missions aimed at connecting ConnectEO beneficiaries with the relevant stakeholders from the targeted country and sector. Within ConnectEO four (4) trade missions have been organized – to Australia in agriculture sector, to Australia in maritime sector, to Chile in agriculture sector, and to Chile in maritime sector. Here is an overview of the actions and outcomes for the Chilean part.

The ConnectEO partners engaged with EuroChile for the Chilean market, which aims at creating, promoting, and consolidating economic, commercial and technological links between SMEs, organizations and public and private institutions from Chile and the European Union. The team delivered a B2B program between late March to mid July 2022 and organized the online Trade Mission to Chile in both agriculture and maritime sectors.

Methodology

EuroChile was working with the 19 ConnectEO SMEs targeting the Chilean market, 8 of them were focusing on agriculture, and 7 on both sectors (maritime and agriculture), and 4 on maritime.

The Trade Mission was divided into 3 days, each of them dedicated to different topic:

  • Day 1 was a generic introduction presenting market trends, public funding incentives and business culture
  • Day 2 focused on agriculture sector
  • Day 3 targeted maritime sector

Regarding the B2B meetings for SMEs and its planning, Eurochile met with each of the 19 SMEs in the month of May with the aim of knowing them and gathering information regarding their demands and thus prepare the content of the final program and their personal agendas for the B2Bs. This helped to learn firsthand about the demands of each one of them, their interests and if they had been in contact with any Chilean entity prior to this activity.

To facilitate the interactions of the international stakeholders, online tools were selected and set up for the community to use. The B2Bs and further interactions between ConnectEO SMEs and Chilean stakeholders were managed through Brella – an AI-powered matchmaking platform which was active from May until mid-July 2022.

To increase the visibility of the ConnectEO SMEs, virtual booths were created for each of the companies through which users could promote their companies and be approached by Chilean stakeholders.

 

Main outcomes

Through Brella, 76 meetings were organized: 10 meetings with stakeholders focused exclusively on maritime sector, 40 meetings for the agriculture sector and 26 cross-sectoral (including both maritime and agriculture sectors).

Therefore, in addition to Brella meetings, several meetings were organized directly through EuroChile by putting the stakeholders in touch with the ConnectEO SMEs. Hence, the total number of meetings held by each of the companies was slightly higher.

In total 92 meetings were held, including 31 regarding maritime & agriculture sector, 18 specifics to the maritime sector and 43 specifics to the agriculture sector.

 

Conclusion and remarks

In average, 6.13 meetings per SME were carried out. However, it is important to highlight some success stories that stand out from the rest of the companies, such as the case of Quantec, with 13 meetings, or Space Sur, with 10 meetings, which shows the success of the Trade Missions, also influenced by the involvement and proactivity of the SMEs of the ConnectEO project.

European companies expressed great interest in meeting with Chilean institutions once the Trade Mission was over and mostly all found areas of collaboration. Different meetings are being held, which are expected to obtain results in the medium and long term.

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