The Italian Chamber of Commerce of Toronto has selected its first formal Northern Ontario presence.
Bob Bonell is the chamber's official representative for Sault Ste. Marie and Northern Ontario.
The chamber's primary focus is to promote trade between Italy and Canada, says Laura Dal Bo, the chamber's director of membership services.
"The chamber's been around 41 years and this is the first time we've ever undertaken a representative outside of our office in Toronto."
With an extensive worldwide network of 25,000 business members in 50 countries, chamber directors will be in the Sault Mar. 10 to make a formal announcement, raise membership awareness and work on a pending B2B trade mission to Italy this summer.
"Because of the large Italian community in Sault Ste. Marie, we thought it would be very opportune to find someone who could represent us there and speak to the community of being a member and how we can increase them increase their business (in Italy)," says Dal Bo. The chamber prepares market research for companies, and can make contacts and arrange one-to-one business meetings.
The chamber is working with John Febbraro, the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corp.'s industrial marketing director and Rapids Community Investment to bring a Sault business delegation to northern Italy in late June.
