According to a statement issued by SEPEE, Mr. Aslanides said during the launch that the project would help to create a super-cluster of Mediterranean regions which would be able to compete with textile clusters in Turkey and Asia.

The SEPEE official explained that the project would aim at combining the strength of each of the eight different regions and form a super-cluster that would integrate the high design, entrepreneurship and value-added production present in Italy, Spain and Greece, as well as the technical advancements and production strengths available in the other regions.

The TEX-MED project would be undertaken in Thessaloniki with the support of SEPEE, which is the official project partner of the European initiative in the country.

The project is funded under the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) Cross Border Cooperation (CBC) in the Mediterranean (MED) countries, also known as the ‘Mediterranean Sea Basin Programme’.

Around eight Mediterranean regions from seven countries, such as Tuscany in Italy, Catalonia in Spain, Thessaloniki in Greece, Tunis and Monastir in Tunisia, Alexandria in Egypt, Bethlehem in Israel and Amman in Jordan, form part of this project.

The two-year project, ending in 2015, has a budget of €2 billion, of which €1.7 billion is funded by the ENPI CBC MED programme, whereas the remaining €300,000 would be financed by the eight project partners in the eight regions.

The TEX-MED Clusters project’s main objective is to increase the volume of links, partnerships and cooperation between the textile industries in the Mediterranean countries and create an integrated Mediterranean textile system.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India