Politica
EU: English is not enough for global business
Lack of language skills leads to loss of business: this is what emerges from a major European study. What is needed is a change in attitude and more multilingualism
di Zesst
Multilingualism is now the key word for the European Union, and the new European Commissioner, Leonard Orban, knows how to praise the diversity…
"Lack of language skills leads to loss of business", reports a major study from the European Commission, published this year. This economic statement sounds like a great incentive to convince leaders and emergent decision-makers to learn more and better languages. They need to explore the benefits that language abilities and intercultural skills bring to business enterprises. This means social entrepreneurs too!
A conference called Languages mean business held in Brussels on the 21st September 2007 has also launched a new Business Forum on Multilingualism. The latter is meant "to start a debate which should trigger changes in attitudes and bring real results" , says Leonard Orban. He also stressed the need for the compulsory knowledge of non-European languages such as Chinese, Arabic and Urdu, in a more global society and market.
To conclude with the impact of language skills of an economy, the participants were reminded that UK companies export as much to Denmark, that has a population of 5 million, as they do to Central and South America, where the population reaches 390 million.
More info:
www.europa.eu
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