The newly established Ministry of Economic Development, which includes four Departments: Development and Cohesion Policies, Communications, Energy, Enterprise and Internationalization, focuses its activities on the main sectors of the Italian Economy. Its goals are both to promote and develop Italian industry’s competitiveness as well as to harmonize and to monitor the domestic market.
Therefore, the Ministry is responsible for planning, co-ordination, carrying out and control of:

• national  industrial development  and  economic cohesion policies, with priority given to underutilized areas and SME’s;
• national energy policy;
• telecommunications;
• protection of intellectual and industrial property;
• enterprise and international trade.

As far as international trade and trade facilitation are concerned, the Ministry promotes and supports Italian exports and  the reference point of UN/CEFACT within the Ministry is the SEMPROITALIA Section, which is responsible for the implementation of the UN Recommendations concerning Trade Facilitation and which co-operates on this subject with other Sections of the Ministry dealing with the Doha Round negotiations.
SEMPROITALIA, together with the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE) is organizing the 14th UNCEFACT Forum in Rome.

The Italian Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE) is the government agency which promotes, facilitates, and develops trade between Italy and the rest of the world, by helping Italian firms to internationalise and set down roots in foreign markets, and fostering the flow of productive inward-outward investments.
ICE also carries out an intense training activity for Italian and foreign managers operating on international markets to promote the “Made in Italy”.

Located in Rome, the Head Office operates in connection with a worldwide network of offices (17 regional offices in Italy and 117 offices in 87 countries).

S.IN.C.E. – the Italian Foreign Trade Information System accessible through the website www.ice.gov.it – plus a broad application of information technology, have facilitated the continuous exchange of data from the network. This allows ICE to respond promptly, and in real time, to the new challenges of the global market.

Foreign companies refer to ICE also through the dedicated official website www.italtrade.com for information and assistance, in order to source potential Italian partners.