Official sponsor of the project

The discussions focussed on five key areas of agriculture & food industry; education and skill development; energy; innovation, science & technology; and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), taking into account the papers on these subjects prepared by the ICCC secretariat.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Naval Bajaj, President, ICCC characterised the Roundtable as ‘a work in progress’. He also noted that ICCC was planning to organise three roundtables in eastern, central and western part of Canada and two roundtables in India during the first half of 2013 in order to gather perspectives from other parts of Canada and also from India. He stressed the need for structured and periodic dialogues with partner organizations in India and Canada in order to strengthen Canada India relations and for building comprehensive economic partnerships between two countries by mobilizing Indian Diaspora networks and their resources.

Mr. Satish Thakkar, Immediate Past President ICCC expressed his happiness that the chamber had taken this initiative which will build on some useful suggestions and recommendations made at PBD Canada 2011 held in Toronto in June 2011on the theme, “Building Bridges: Positioning Strategies for the Indian Diaspora”. 

Ambassador (Retd) Kant K Bhargava remarked that the vibrant Indian Diaspora would have an increasingly important role to play in future for advancing Canada India partnership by virtue of the professional skills and knowledge of its members. He referred to numerous agreements and M.O.Us about cooperation between Canada and India in various fields. It was imperative that appropriate mechanisms be established for their implementation and for monitoring of progress achieved under their aegis. He also mentioned the need for preparing a data base of knowledgeable members of the Indian Diaspora in different areas of cooperation for facilitating mobilisation of their networks and resources.

Following useful suggestions and observations were made by the participants:

1. Evident present and future increased role of immigration, influenced by skill shortages in Canada, and scope for potential upgrading of credentials of students from India (with additional Canadian education and experience), bodes well for advancing partnership in Education and Skill Development matters;
2. Educational linkages, already having gained momentum over the past 5 years, offers the most logical avenue cooperation and collaboration in future.
3. Present funding available to well qualified student applicants is inadequate and needs to be substantially augmented.
4. Faster pace towards recognitions of credentials and visa processing of applicants from India will contribute to advancement of cooperation in Higher Education.
5. Besides the current mentoring programs, special efforts must be made to seek participation of the institutions in the commercial sector in both countries to own up their welcome role to facilitate these students getting Canadian work experience. Equally relevant will be to ensure that interested short-term mobile Canadian students are afforded Indian experience by commercial sector entities having Canada focus;
6. Academic and Industry Diaspora Community linkage should be an integral   part of ICCC operations. ICCC should constitute a Committee exclusively for this purpose;
7. ICCC should consider creation of an Award for the best performing student in the Annual Award Gala.
8. The theme of the next Education Summit be ‘Exploring Academia-Industry Linkages” Given the heritage of Canada – India linkages in Education, Technology and Trade, institutions such as ACCC, AIU, APFC, AUCC, CBIE, CCC, C-IBC, CIEC, CII, FICCI, ICCC, DFAIT, Shastri Institute, and others concerned must be encouraged to take part and support the Summit.
9. Human Resources and Skills Development, Canada (HRSD) and its counterparts in India should develop relationship in sharing information on methodologies used to identifying skills shortages.
10. Wherever feasible, major collaborative initiatives in Science & Technology should seek out Indo-Canadian experts to work with other champions.
11. The participants noted that the India Innovation institute has been setup at the University of Toronto as a joint venture of the Munk School of Global Affairs and the Rotman School of Management. Cooperation between Canada and India needs to be increased in the field of innovation with a view to make it pervasive and profitable through future collaboration, joint studies and research.
12. India should profit from Canadian expertise in matters relating to food storage and setting up food processing industry with a view to avoid wastage.
13. The participants noted that all round cooperation in the energy sector will be mutually beneficial to the two countries. Indo-Canadians having the expertise in the energy sector should play increasingly important roles for getting the relevant players in this sector on one platform for cooperation.
14. The participants noted the opportunity for setting up joint ventures in small and medium enterprises in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) set up by government of India. The Canadian authorities may consider setting up similar facility for promoting export oriented SMEs keeping in mind opportunities available in USA and Latin America.