The president of Medef, Patrick Martin, asked this Wednesday for a greater effort to find exporting companies, while the head of the public service responsible for this international initiative regretted the “dispersion” of aid abroad. Laurent Saint-Martin, the general director of Business France, has also appealed to the different interveners to mieux “workers in the team” in the different countries, to “cesser d’être peut-être l’écosystème de l’accompagnement le plus bête of the world”.
“We have a France Team (composed in particular of Business France, the public investment bank Bpifrance and the chambers of commerce and industry, ed.) that over the years is gaining in effectiveness and dynamism, but we have to go much further,” he declared. for his part, the head of Medef, pointing out that there is “an entire population of SMEs (small and medium-sized industries) that are not aware of the need to project themselves internationally.”
“Intensify” the sectoral approach
He also considered that it is necessary to “intensify” the sectoral approach and advocated, “which also applies to Medef”, for a greater presence of actors in the regions “to discover all those nuggets that are not valued in exports.”
Laurent Saint-Martin also considered that it was necessary to “work more with the sectors, put ourselves in charge of their strategies, because they are the ones who best know the companies’ priorities.” “We have missions and professions that can compete with each other,” he told those attending the Rencontres, “but we must go further, we cannot be satisfied with a French flag spread so widely abroad when we talk about the economy,” he said.
Describing the companies as lost between “CCI (chambers of commerce and industry), Business France, CCE (foreign trade advisors), OSCI (operators specialized in international trade)”, he believes that “this is no longer possible” and “that “You absolutely have to know how to coordinate the offer, know who does what and which brick has the greatest added value according to each country.”
“Urgency to reach an agreement in the EU” on energy
The head of Medef, who met last week in Berlin with his German and Italian counterparts from BDI and Confindustria, also felt “great concern” among them about the economic situation, marked by “an international competition that is intensifying quite violently.” “. ‘, with ‘predatory logic on the part of the United States and China’.
The president of Medef estimated that there is an “urgent need to reach an agreement in the EU” on energy matters. He has already observed “the transfers of production, but also of investments and financing to the United States, where the IRA is located”, the US program of massive support for green industrial production”, but also the low price of energy: ” that is obvious in chemistry,” according to him.
Finally returning to the “duty of vigilance” that requires ordering companies to prevent social and environmental risks within themselves, but also among their subsidiaries and subcontractors, Martin pointed out “the risk of delay” with respect to other “less scrupulous” countries. “: “When it comes to rules, we must stop being jealous when others are not,” he said.
Source: BFM TV
