ICCC’s six-city India Mission 2013

Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC)’s India Mission 2013 came to a successful conclusion in Amritsar January 16. It started January 3 from Toronto. During the two-week program, the Mission visited Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kochi, Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar, Delhi, Amritsar and Jalandhar. Led by ICCC’s President Naval Bajaj, the India Mission 2013 comprised over a 100 small businesses from Canada and also includes a team from the Cities of Brampton and Markham led by their respective mayors – Her Worship Susan Fennell (Brampton) and His Worship Frank Scarpitti (Markham).

ICCC-ICBC-CII Seminar on SME

The role of the small and medium enterprises in fostering bilateral Canada-India economic ties was the theme of the annual seminar jointly organized by Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, the Indo-Canadian Business Chamber (ICBC) and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) at Delhi’s Habitat Centre. Dr. HP Kumar, Chairman and Managing Director of the National Small Scale Industries Corporation, was the keynote speaker at the seminar. Other speakers included Arun Pandeya, Country Head, Air Canada and Deep Kapuria of CII, Her Worship Susan Fannell, Mayor of Brampton and His Excellency Stewart Beck, Canada’s High Commissioner to India. The seminar was a part of the ongoing project of ICCC called Canada-India Partnership: Unlocking the Full Potential*.

In general the participants emphasized that the governments should formulate specific policies to encourage SMEs to globalize and forge links; they also advocated for specific SME themed trade missions. In his remarks, Naval Bajaj highlighted that a shift has occurred in the development paradigm where the traditional top-to-bottom route has been altered with the advent of globalized SMEs. It is now the suburban cities who are leading the development. In addition, he also highlighted the advantages small businesses have in Canada.

• Excellent working conditions with high standard of living, world class health facilities and public education system
• Advances in a multiple sectors including food processing, aerospace, and automotive industries, has expertise to share in professional business services, clean technology, digital media, Information Technology, life sciences, material research, mining, biotechnology, nanotechnology and tourism where it also welcomes as well as provides to other countries investment
• Relative ease for starting new businesses
• Stable federal government with an agenda to promote business
• Skilled work force thanks to its immigration policies which attracts talents and skilled persons from all over the world
• Multicultural society, rule of law and democratic practices
• Robust banking system known for its fuelling the new business ventures with lines of credit and loans

At an evening reception in Delhi held at His Excellency Stewart Beck’s residence, the Canadian High Commissioner lauded the efforts of the ICCC and Naval Bajaj to follow up on the Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to India by bringing a business delegation to India. Similar sentiments were expressed by Sara Wilshaw, Minister (Commercial) and India Trade Program Manager. In his speech, Naval Bajaj thanked the Consular corps for its unstinted support to make the mission so successful. “It has been a hectic, fruitful and significant Mission and it wouldn’t have been possible without the tremendous help that we got from the Canadian High Commission. I want to especially thank Sara Wilshaw, Nicloas LePage, Kyle Nunce, Joachim Rocha and all other members of the diplomatic corps. Our mission achieved all it did because of their constant support."