On May 10^th, 2010, there-election of Sonja Zwazl to the post of President of the Chamber of Commercefor the Austrian region of Niederösterreich was confirmed. This gave thepresident of the chamber the opportunity to outline the things which, accordingto her, will be the thematic priorities of the WK-NÖ for the next five years.

The most fundamental of thesewere strengthening member services, particularly on a regional basis and tryingto understand, harness, as well as support existing trends. However, anotherpriority was then added to this list: “Bildungforcieren-Arbeitsmarkt gestalten”, which, in English, roughly translatesinto “hasten training and develop the labour market”.

This final priority may seem outof place compared to the others, but in truth, it is a sine qua non condition of their development: the availability oftraining, the acquisition of expertise in any place or area is a positiveexternality that boosts the business climate of a region. Furthermore, the lackof training makes it less possible to find workers who are both willing andqualified to follow the aforementioned trends.

Training is a word that may meana lot of things; should one assume that it includes certifying social andpersonal competency, which is the mission of the ECo-C? To this question, theanswer is an unequivocal yes:  Mrs. Zwazlherself visited the offices of IPKeurope on May 13^th topersonally inform herself on the nature of the ECo-C and the quality of thecertificate’s content. That this visit came so soon after her re-election,delivers a strong message of support to the ECo-C initiative, underlining itsusefulness to businesses and professionals alike.

Pictured: Sonja Zwazl and Leopold Kaiblinger at IPKeurope on 13.05.2010