Education and energy bring together the Confindustria and Trakia Economic Zone
Article by: marica.bg
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There are various topics on which we will cooperate with Trakia Economic Zone /TEZ/, and among the main ones are education, qualification of personnel, energy, achieving a zero carbon footprint. This was stated by Mr. Roberto Santorelli, Chairman of Confindustria Bulgaria, during his visit to the largest and most sustainable industrial zone in Southeast Europe yesterday. Maurizio Paruso, Deputy Chairman and Mila Nenova, Director of the Association of Italian Entrepreneurs in Bulgaria, also attended the meeting at the Vocational Training Center TRAKIA in Rakovski industrial zone, part of TEZ.
“We have created the first of its kind training center in the country, serving the business in an industrial park, in order not only to qualify and retrain the staff of companies in TEZ, but also for the practical training of students”, explained to the guests Eng. Rosen Kosturkov. Director at Trakia EDU – operator of Vocational Training Center TRAKIA. This center is unique for Bulgaria – here is the latest technology, classes are with industrial equipment and technologies that are used in real production, said Mr. Kosturkov.
Since last fall, more than 60 students from 5 vocational high schools in the Plovdiv region have been studying at the Center, added Eng. Plamen Panchev, founder of TEZ and chairman of Cluster Trakia Economic Zone.
He specified that the idea for this extremely useful program for training from the student bench came from Eng. Rosen Kosturkov and was implemented with the financial support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation. Eng. Kosturkov is also the basis of the project “Active Learning Community for Upskilling Technicians and Engineers” under the EU ERASMUS + program, in which “Cluster Trakia Economic Zone” together with universities and chambers of commerce from 4 countries / Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Poland / creates training programs for active learning of engineering and technical company staff. He is also actively involved in the team developing the “new generation” of carbon-neutral industrial parks (CNIP). The doctoral studies of Eng. Rosen Kosturkov are in the field of energy efficiency of production enterprises and many of the studies have been done in the factories in TEZ, stressed Eng. Panchev.
He explained that the TEZ-CNIP project envisages the use of 45% in 2025, 60% in 2030 and 100% green energy in 2040 in the industrial parks of TEZ. “Our strategy is one of the pioneers in the EU for a zero carbon footprint in industrial areas. We will be happy to find partners in the face of Italian companies and areas”, said Eng. Panchev to the representatives of Confindustria Bulgaria.
“We are impressed by what has been achieved at TEZ, we believe that we can successfully partner in the transition to a low-carbon economy, because Italy is one of the best in Europe in this area”, said Mr. Roberto Santorelli.
Immediately after the meeting, Eng. Kosturkov handed over certificates for completed qualification course to employees of the Schneider Electric plant, which is located in another subzone of TEZ – Maritsa.
Confindustria Bulgaria was established in 2000 in order to promote economic cooperation between Italy and Bulgaria, in the role of representative of Italian companies in Bulgaria. Currently, the association includes nearly 300 companies. Large groups such as UniCredit Bulbank, Generali, Mapei, as well as small and medium-sized Italian companies are part of Confindustria Bulgaria.
Confindustria Bulgaria reports entrepreneurial activity totaling € 2 billion in direct investment, sales worth € 1.75 billion and 30,000 jobs.
