Since 1947, Confapi represents small and medium-sized private Italian industries, the pillar of the productive system. Confapi’s goal is to protect the interests of Italian industrial SMEs and represent their needs. Nowadays Confapi represents a wide – ranging system: 116,000 industries, with 1,200,000 employees, 63 territorial associations and 13 productive sectorial federations. Confapi is a member of CESE and of CNEL, the Italian National Council for Economics and Labor. Together with Italian and European institutions, Confapi develops strategies to support SMEs in foreign markets, identifying business and financing opportunities at national and european levels, through international partnerships, business missions and B2B.