A Corporate Association for development of industrial partnerships around the Mediterranean With more than 200 corporations from the Provence-Alps-Riviera region united in membership, with focused efforts over the past 20 years to bring together Mediterranean corporations, with recognized and tangible results, the ADECI offers small-to-medium-sized corporations a concrete and practical plan of action with step-by-step accompaniment. With active support from the Provence-Alps-Riviera Regional Council, the French state, the European Union and several international institutions, the ADECI operates at grass roots level to encourage and forge industrial corporate partnerships with Africa and the Mediterranean. The ADECI was the brainchild of corporate leaders within the Provence-Alps-Riviera region who took the initiative of creating it back in 1980 in Marseilles. The ADECI unites more than 200 industrial corporations in the form of a non-profit-making association. Our main objective is to unite, to advise and to accompany visits to regional corporations seeking to develop industrial partnerships with companies from around the Mediterranean basin. A number of public partners back our efforts with financial support : The Provence-Alps-Riviera Regional Council, the French state (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Industry) and the Bouches-du-Rhône County Council. This backing allows us to work with corporations within a framework of shared interests. The ADECI handles 300 to 400 operations with small-to-medium-sized regional corporations each year. These take many and different forms ranging from the organization of individual or collective corporate missions into Mediterranean countries, to overseas representation of our members, to relaying of business opportunities, to identification of Mediterranean partners, to technical assistance in setting up joint operations, to assistance in finding international financing.... SCOPE The small-to-medium-sized corporations within the Provence-Alps-Riviera region who are developing production of industrial goods or who specialize in certain industrial services such as maintenance or engineering, for example. In addition to our members, we also offer our services to all the small-to- medium corporations in the region. The Mediterranean : the countries of north Africa, Italy and Spain form our operating zone. The future 'Mediterranean free trade zone' opens perspectives for which these small-to-medium-sized corporations must be prepared. The ADECI's ultimate aim in all the actions we undertake and offer to corporations is the rapprochement of corporations in the same business (industrial journeyman system). In our approach, we favor accompanying corporations on field trips to these business destinations on an individual basis. In our considerable experience, this method helps create and develop partnership agreements on trade, technology or finance between corporations. Industrial partnerships constitute the stepping stones to tomorrow's international trade : technological transfers or exchanges, coproduction or cocontracting agreements, product range swaps and intercorporate financial participations and holdings. MEANS A network of experts associated with the ADECI, covering the countries of the Mediterranean, is at the disposal of the small-to-medium-sized regional corporations. Their job in the field is to locate companies within the Mediterranean country in question which correspond to the requested profile and to set up the first meetings. This assistance from the ADECI expert is always on an individual basis and always tailored to meet specific needs. A network of technical partners within France and abroad enables us to upgrade the efficiency of the operations we undertake, either through their implantation, like Imed, in certain Mediterranean countries, or through their capacity to initiate innovative group actions such as those of the inter- regional decentralized cooperation network 'Entreprises & Developpement'. In certain cases, the ADECI works in association with Chambers of Commerce and Industry for group missions overseas. An international network, patiently built up by the ADECI, helps simplify access for corporations to sources of information and financing managed by European or multilateral organizations specializing in industrial parnerships. The ADECI acts as regional representative for some of these organizations : the UNIDO or the CDC in Brussels, for example. Modern marketing supports for the industrial production of regional corporations are developed and managed by the ADECI : our own Internet site, a catalog edited every two years, databanks of business opportunities. These various tools also enable us to receive requests from overseas corporations, requests which we immediately relay to our regional corporations. Experience accumulated by the ADECI since our creation in 1980, both in the techniques of industrial partnershipping and in our knowledge of Mediterranean countries, allows us to offer corporations valuable advice in their negociations with potential partners or in the drafting of business contracts.