News 

Indo Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) has received complaints posted on social media, and over email, sent from unverified sources/ individuals, pertaining to one of its directors’ social media postings alleged to be against the Canadian laws.

ICCC strongly believes in compliance with all Canadian laws and values, and supports the diversity of Canadian society, and therefore, is taking this matter in the right earnest.

In cognizance of these complaints, ICCC while following its internal procedures has instituted an internal review that may include seeking legal advice. The outcome of the internal review will be announced here upon completion.

In the interim, the said director has volunteered to stay away from any official duties, and the ICCC Board has accepted the offer.

President's Message

By Pramod Goyal

Impact of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken monstrous dimensions with the global lockdown nowhere near an end. Its economic costs are enormous. Globally, the International Monetary Fund calculates that countries have taken fiscal actions amounting to about $8 trillion to contain the pandemic and its damage to the economy.

Thursday Talks

Earlier this month, we launched the Thursday Talks Webinar Series. In the inaugural webinar we discussed the impact of COVID-19 on small business. The response was overwhelming, and we are holding a second session on the subject again this week.

ICCC’s Thursday Talks webinar series will become a platform to discuss the fallout of the pandemic on different sectors. 

Awards Nomination

We have extended the deadline of the submission of nominations to the ICCC Annual Awards from 7 April to 7 May. I urge all of you to take advantage of this extension and nominate Indo-Canadian achievers for the nine open categories of ICCC’s Annual Awards.

Read the full message, click here: President's Message

In the News

ICCC Launches Small Business Assist Program

Read more, click here: In the News

Programs and Events

Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce has cancelled all programs until further notice because of the social distancing requirement imposed by the provincial government in Ontario to prevent the spread of COVID-19. To continue engaging our members, stakeholders and sponsors, we launched ICCC's Thursday Talks Webinar Series in April 2020. The response to our first Webinar was overwhelming. 

ICCC's Thursday Talks

COVID-19 & Small Business - 2

Time: 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm

Date: Thursday 16 April 2020

Register: Thursday Talks

Past Events

ICCC Thursday Talks

COVID-19 & Small Business

The first-ever webinar of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) received an overwhelming response from members and stakeholders. Held on Thursday 9 April 2020, the level and the quality of participation was superlative and thought-provoking.

The panelists and speakers at the webinar on ‘COVID-19 and Small Business’ comprised experts in the field of finance, taxation and public policy and included

• Pramod Goyal, President, ICCC, and President & CEO, Canadawide Financial Corporation Ltd.

• Sanjay Kulkarni, Vice President, Finance, ICCC, and a seasoned operationally oriented Finance Executive

• Sanjay Chadha, Senior Advisor to ICCC, and Partner, SAV Associates Chartered Professional Accountants

• Dharma Jain, Past President, ICCC, and Principal, DP Jain Professional Corporation

All of them are business consultants and financial advisors for small businesses and corporations.

• Vijay Thomas, Vice President, International Trade & IT, ICCC, moderated the discussion.

Read more, click here: Programs and Events

Insight

The Great Lockdown

The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression

By Gita Gopinath

Chief Economist International Monetary Fund

The world has changed dramatically in the three months since our last update of the World Economic Outlook in January. A rare disaster, a coronavirus pandemic, has resulted in a tragically large number of human lives being lost. As countries implement necessary quarantines and social distancing practices to contain the pandemic, the world has been put in a Great Lockdown. The magnitude and speed of collapse in activity that has followed is unlike anything experienced in our lifetimes.

This is a crisis like no other, and there is substantial uncertainty about its impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. A lot depends on the epidemiology of the virus, the effectiveness of containment measures, and the development of therapeutics and vaccines, all of which are hard to predict. In addition, many countries now face multiple crises—a health crisis, a financial crisis, and a collapse in commodity prices, which interact in complex ways. Policymakers are providing unprecedented support to households, firms, and financial markets, and, while this is crucial for a strong recovery, there is considerable uncertainty about what the economic landscape will look like when we emerge from this lockdown.

Read more, click here: IMF's World Economic Outlook

Money Talk

By Rakesh Vijay

6 things to know to weather a market downturn

The financial planning crunch

Read more, click here: Money Talk

Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce

924 The East Mall Toronto ON M9B 6K1

Tel: (416) 224-0090 Fax: (416) 916-0086

Email: iccc@iccconline.org

Website: www.iccconline.org 

Over-whelming response & enthusiastic participation

The first-ever webinar of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) received an overwhelming response from members and stakeholders. Held on Thursday 9 April 2020, the level and the quality of participation was superlative and thought-provoking.

The panelists and speakers at the webinar on ‘COVID-19 and Small Business’ comprised experts in the field of finance, taxation and public policy and included

• Pramod Goyal, President, ICCC, and President & CEO, Canadawide Financial Corporation Ltd.
• Sanjay Kulkarni, Vice President, Finance, ICCC, and a seasoned operationally oriented Finance Executive
• Sanjay Chadha, Senior Advisor to ICCC, and Partner, SAV Associates Chartered Professional Accountants
• Dharma Jain, Past President, ICCC, and Principal, DP Jain Professional Corporation

All of them are financial advisors and planners for small businesses and corporations.

• Vijay Thomas, Vice President, International Trade & IT, ICCC, moderated the discussion.

The first webinar was a part of a series of webinars called ‘ICCC Thursday Talks’ that have been planned during the next few weeks to continuously engage our members and stakeholders in these times of enforced social distancing.

The main takeaways from the webinar were:

• Although unprecedented, this crisis will pass and won’t last forever
• Our generation’s first experience of a pandemic
• Compared to previous generation’s sacrifices for instance, in WW-II, our generation's crisis may pale in significance
• Opportunity to tackle business issues that have been perennially on the backburner and take challenging decisions about restructuring
• Government incentives are welcome but will definitely cause inflation, and higher taxes in the near-term
• Incentives should only be used ethically

The participation in the webinar ‘COVID-19 and Small Business’ was so large that it choked the webinar platforms, and, unfortunately, some members and stakeholders who had signed up for the program couldn’t access it.

We are delighted to provide them the link to the recording of the program:

Download the recording from Google Drive

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pmb4CHVmXgD0XvCj1qV3VIITp41YIpTZ

Download the WebEx player app

https://www.webex.com/video-recording.html   

Open the downloaded Google Drive file on the WebEx player

You may download the presentation made during the webinar here: ICCC Thursday Talks – COVID-19 & Small Business

The occasion was also used to launch the ICCC BUSINESS ASSIST PROGRAM, whereby the Chamber will provide a pro bono business advisory service to any small business.

The ICCC BUSINESS ASSIST PROGRAM will initially be offering counseling focused in the following areas:

• Availing Government benefits for small businesses
• COVID-19 impacted issues falling under Financial Services domain
• Business Accounting, Taxation, Statutory Filing Challenges
• Impact and solutions within Information Technology Area
• Assistance for Business restructuring

How:

• Send an email to iccc@iccconline.org under Subject Heading – “Business Assist Program”
• Provide your contact details including direct telephone number and specific area of counseling requested in.
• Upon the receipt of your email request, the ICCC BUSINESS ASSIST core group will review and assign to the best available resource, following which the assigned Team member would then contact you to discuss your specific business challenge and offer counseling on a Pro-bono basis.

In view of the unexpectedly large participation, and because a few members could not participate as the webinar platforms were overloaded, we are holding a second edition of the Thursday Talks scheduled at 4:30 pm Thursday 16 April on the same subject – COVID-19 and Small Business, with a different panel of experts.

As the Canadian Government’s response to the pandemic is evolving, there will be enough new material to discuss the same broad topic in the second edition of our series. So, please register here:

Time: 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm

Date: Thursday 16 April 2020

Register: ICCC's Thursday Talks-COVID-19 & Small Business

Speakers and panelists

• Pramod Goyal
• Anandiya (Andy) Mittra
• Vijay Thomas
• Chetan Sehgal
• Brian Cheng