Since yesterday, Team Côte d’Azur has undergone a transformation with the integration into its governance, after having entered its shareholding, during the 2012 General Assembly, of the Metropolis NCA, which becomes, alongside the General Council and the Chamber of Commerce, the third pillar of the department’s economic promotion agency. Its mission is to promote the Azurean territory in international markets and to facilitate the establishment of new businesses, whether French or foreign.
Regarding the management of Team CA, the outgoing president Jean-Pierre Mascarelli, who is also the Vice-President in charge of economic affairs at the GC, has been reconfirmed in his role and will be supported by the two Vice-Presidents Christian Tordo, his counterpart at the City of Nice and also president of the EPA of the OIN Plaines du Var, and Jean-Paul Henri.
The three institutional players, through the voices of their presidents, wanted to emphasize the importance they ascribe to this tool which should become a force for conquest in international markets for promoting and enhancing the territory’s attractiveness.
Bernard Kleynhoff, president of the CCI: “There is no competition between the actions of the CCI and those of Team CA. Our role is to monitor established businesses by offering innovative solutions. With Team CA, whose roadmap is promotion/establishment, the outcome is to create a structured development agency.”
For Eric Ciotti, president of the GC, “the establishment of businesses in our territory is the major challenge for its development. Businesses generate activity, create jobs, and contribute, in part, to the financial well-being of communities. Therefore, it is a priority to give the department the assets to be an attractive place and seek efficiency in action.”
The concluding remarks were from Christian Estrosi, president of Metropolis Nice CA: “One of the competencies linked to the creation of our Metropolis is international economic promotion. This is a responsibility of the utmost importance because it directly concerns the core of our objectives, job creation, and collective wealth creation through the establishment of new businesses.”
“We have entered this agency with confidence but also with specific demands to reorient the roadmap: the first is that prospecting and promotion efforts must be reorganized as operationally as possible. The second is for Team CA to work more closely with the local network of major businesses. This concentration of commercial and communication resources will give full meaning to our promotion policy.”
As we can see, the strategy is ambitious: making the Alpes-Maritimes a territory of excellence with strong attractiveness for the international business world is a laudable project.
Yet, it requires adequate resources, especially when there is a significant delay to catch up on, and others are not just passively watching.
Saying that all this will be achieved with a meager budget of fewer than three million euros and a dozen employees, even if they are competent and motivated, seems rather optimistic, if not daring.
