| Promoting small businesses |
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| ICCC's SME Winter Expo 2017 - a path breaking initiative |
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| Ontario Minister Jeff Leal |
India's Consul General Dinesh Bhatia |
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The Honourable Jeff Leal, Minister for Small Business, Ontario, emphasized the need to promote small businesses with a view to create employment opportunities and lauded the role of Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) in consistently advocating the cause of Canadian small and medium entrepreneurs as a part of its mandate. The Minister was speaking at the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC)’s inaugural SME Expo 2017 held Tuesday, December 5, 2017, in Toronto.
In his extempore remarks, His Excellency Dinesh Bhatia, the Consul General of India in Toronto, credited the ICCC for understanding the emerging dynamics of the Canadian and the Indian economies and the role small businesses are and will be playing in these economies in the future. He said ICCC has pioneered the advocacy and promotion of the small businesses as a sector for the last decade-and-a-half and carved a niche for itself by doing so.
The ICCC’s inaugural SME Expo 2017 is a successful attempt by the new leadership of the Chamber to consolidate its programming and make it more business focussed rather than diaspora focussed. The SME Expo replaced the Winter Gala. The exposition attracted nearly two dozen exhibitors that included small businesses as well as large corporations that are the Chamber’s Partners in Success.
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| Kanwar Dhanjal, President, ICCC |
Royce Mendes, Economist, CIBC |
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In his remarks, ICCC President Kanwar Dhanjal said, ICCC-SME Expo2017 is a great opportunity for Canadian small businesses to make direct connection with consumers and other businesses. Customised to cater to the growing connectivity needs of small businesses, and building upon the ICCC’s pledge to create opportunities for small entrepreneurs, ICCC-SME Expo2017 will become a trendsetter in the years to come.
Mr. Dhanjal added that the event is an attempt by the incumbent leadership of the ICCC to infuse the Chamber with business oriented programming. The ICCC-SME Expo2017 was organised in the backdrop of the increasing significance of small businesses to the Canadian economy. As a result, during the last decade-and-a-half, the ICCC has increasingly focused on advocating on behalf of small businesses.
The ICCC President said, in 2016 97.9 percent of entrepreneurial businesses were small businesses that employed 70.5 percent of the total private labour force. Small businesses contribute 30 percent to the Canadian GDP, account for 25.2 percent of exports and incur 27 percent of R&D expenditure. Keeping in mind that 78.5 percent of Canadian small businesses are service oriented, the ICCC-Expo2017 as well as the panel discussion will focus primarily on services sector.
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Panel on Financing, Support and Startup,
Impact of Proposed Tax Changes |
Panel on Cryptocurrency, Fintech
and Digital revolution |
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Two panel discussions were also organised as a part of the SME Expo 2017. Veteran ICCC member Murray Jans moderated the first on Financing, Support and Startup, Impact of Proposed Tax Changes. The panelists were Jeff Dennis – Partner at Fasken Martineau; Renu Narang – BDC; and Mike Marshall – CIBC. Sat Swaminathan moderated the second panel discussion on Cryptocurrency, Fintech and Digital revolution. The panelists for this one included Rahul Petkar – CEO Intellect Design Arena Inc., Harshvendra Soin – VP & Country Head, Tech Mahindra; and Peter McArthur – RBC.
Royce Mendes, Director & Senior Economist, CIBC, gave the keynote address.
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