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EU industry should be modernized via innovations,smart technologies: Slovak official

Xinhua, July 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

EU industry should be modernized via innovations as well as the introduction of smart technologies, announced Slovak Economy Minister Peter Ziga here on Monday.

The words came after an informal meeting of EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) ministers responsible for competitiveness with Elzbieta Bienkowska, EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.

The EU ministers discussed their common vision on how to support the digitization of companies and businesses in the bloc. They agreed that one of the ways to support innovations is to create suitable conditions for investors and new business models.

"New trends in the industry and business represent infinite potential of growth for Europe and the EU," stressed Ziga.

The Slovak minister added that the EU has to draft a set of specific measures in order to strengthen the competitiveness of European industry in global market. These measures feature the reinforcement of robotics and digitization, especially in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises.

According to Ziga, successful business models and better production process improved by digital technology will generate new international market opportunities.

"Europe has to take advantage of these opportunities in order to become more competitive and offer better possibilities for investment and business," added Ziga.

Regarding the readiness of the EU labour force for future trends, the ministers responsible for competitiveness also discussed the lack of skills, especially digital skills, in many sectors and the measures that have to adopted to provide the industry with skilled workers.

"By 2020 we'll have around 750,000 new jobs related to IT technologies in the EU," expressed Bienkowska. "Right now we have around one million job vacancies that can not be filled because there aren't people with suitable IT skills," she added in reference to the lack of IT skills among the workforce. Endit