Organised by seven regional development agencies and backed by the SPIRIT agency, the meeting hosts sizeable delegations from Serbia, Hungary and Italy, but there are also businessmen from as far afield as Turkey and the UK, project coordinator Franc Gönc said.

Mihael Leskovar, the head of the Maribor Development Agency, said the event allowed small and micro companies to get to know potential partners and enter foreign markets.

There are representatives of 110 companies from nine European countries and almost half of all participants are from abroad. Almost 1,200 meetings will be held over two days.

Leskovar said such events also helped companies from the poorer eastern cohesion region to improve their capacity to absorb EU funds.