For the last ten years C.OR.ART. has been offering its services to a group of affiliated jewellery firms and has helped to generate many business opportunities for buyers all over the world. This marketing service was set up in 1989 as a spin-off of the Vicenza branch of the Italian C.N.A. National Artisans' Confederation.
Shortly after its foundation we understood the importance of allowing the organisation to evolve by modifying its statute and making it more flexible in its reaction to changes in the market. The last important change was made in 1995. Since then C.OR.ART. has been not only a consortium of jewellery manufacturing firms but also an organisation open to small companies, regardless of their membership of other sector associations such as the Associazione Artigiani, the API (the Italian national association for small and medium-size firms), Assoindustria etc.
C.OR.ART. now has 19 associated firms but only half of these are affilated with the CNA. This is a significant fact as it means that the firms have found in our consortium a valid, competitive autonomous service operating in its own right. C.OR.ART. has its own offices, which were inaugurated two years ago, and receives no public funds. The new statute in fact now requires each affiliated firm to pay a membership fee. It is evident that firms do not become associated only on account of the economic advantage but because they are seeking a specific form of assistance.
Finally, C.OR.ART. can be proud of its financially sound organisation. For many years it has been returning very healthy balance sheets and a turnover amounting to half a billion lire, the profits of which are reinvested in promotion.
Gabriella Centomo
President of C.OR.ART.
Services offered by C.OR.ART.
In the early days C.OR.ART. offered its assistance to artisans' firms associated with the CNA and ran a collective stand at the Vicenza Trade Fair. Now, its activity is much more articulated and assist firms participating in trade fairs at Vicenza, Arezzo, Basel, Hong Kong, Orlando, Las Vegas and Lipsia, provides assistance for trade missions and common marketing action with specially compiled mailing lists.
