On 13-14 November 2008, two very important events, concerning the development of Future European Clusters’ policy took place, in Sophia Antipolice, France - Competitive Clusters' Forum and Ministerial Conference on Clusters.

The 4th Annual Competitive Clusters Forum allowed to discuss the best European cluster and innovation policies in the presence of very numerous leaders.

As a result of the Forum, on December 1st, it is expected, European Commission to propose to the Competitiveness Council of the European Union a real European frame for the support of clusters for validation.

At the Forum, the European Commission was represented by Günter Verheugen, Vice-president in charge of enterprise and industry. In Sophia Antipolis, he first of all reminded that in the last 18 months EU had discussed a lot about clusters and the way forward. And it’s time to act. The key in all cases is to focus on excellence.

Günter Verheugen notably declared that the Commission has no ambition to dictate to the Member States where to invest and on what to specialise. The task is more to show the way for “better cluster policies” and to support Member States’ efforts by using the Community instruments in a more consistent manner in support of clusters.

The European Commission in its communication of October 17th, 2008 entitled " Towards world class-clusters in the European Union: Implementing the broad-based innovation strategy “moreover underlined that " in order to maximise their impact, the relevant Community instruments need to be implemented.

"Southeast Europe Economic Forum" is an annual forum that gathers together the economic and political elit of the Region and gives opportunity for integral dialogue between the representatives of the business, administration and international institutions .

The main topics that were disputed this year were devided in 4 panells:

-Global Economic Trends and their Impact on Southeast Europe
-Infrastructure, Construction and Real Estate
-Power Engineering, Energy Efficiency and Environment
-Telecommunications

Mr. Statev participated at the "Global Economic Trends and their Impact on Southeast Europe" panell during the Business Breakfast that was held on 6th November, 2008 in Sky Plaza Restaurant. He made a presentation about Public Private Partnershipin the context of the development of Broadband Projects during the establishment of the project "Digital Municipality".

The exhibition took place from 19 to 23rd October 2008 in Dubai. Three companies- member of Bulgarian Telecommunications Cluster presented their products - "Smartcom", "Ecocoms" and "2C- Trifonov & Co". 3 300 companies from 83 countries were participated and presented their products and services . Visitors had the opportunity to experience the latest products and solutions at first-hand from many of the biggest brands in the ICT industry.

The international ICT exhibition "Infosystems'2008 took place in Thessaloniki, Greece, from 2 to 5 October 2008. Two companies- members of telecommunications cluster were presented and took part at the exhibition.

"Expert Vision" emphasized on its products that are oriented towards clients using Cisco based solutions - for example: Cisco Call Manager and Cisco IP Phone.

"Openintegra" made a presentation of the product "Openeye" - interactive multimedia system that offers a set of features and services to hotel guests and staff