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"We are strengthening the foundation to build Mississauga for the future generations," Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie said during her 2019 State of the City Address delivered at the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) on 18th March 2019.

“Mississauga will inspire the world as a dynamic, global city bursting with creativity and innovation. A vibrant, safe and inclusive city where we celebrate our rich diversity and cultures. A City that is open for business and that attracts top talent and investment from around the world. Mississauga will continue to be a place where people choose to live, work and raise a family and where businesses thrive for generations to come,” Mayor Crombie said.

She said that, “we are a place where people choose to live and work and where businesses want to invest and innovate.”

“Mississauga is working as a magnetic city, attracting investment globally,” Crombie said.

Highlights of Mayor Bonnie Crombie’s City Address at the ICCC:

• Mississauga is preparing for the jobs of tomorrow, not the jobs of today
• City is the second largest cluster of employment next to Toronto and outpacing other cities in the GTA.
• Mississauga is home to Canada’s largest Airport
• It holds ‘AAA’ credit rating from Standard & Poors (S&P) 15 years in a row, it helps the businesses to build more confidence in the city.
• City have over 1400 multi-national firms and 91,000 businesses out of which 95% are small businesses
• Diversity is key to the success of businesses in the city with over 145 languages spoken
• City is home to 75 Fortune 500 companies and 66 Fortune Global 500 Companies
• Over 70% of the workforce population have post-secondary education
• City is well connected by 7 major highways
• Projected nearly $55 million in savings of tax dollars over the past decade
• As a City, we will also need to handle the explosive growth we will experience in the next twenty years, when we will have nearly 900,000 people living in our City as compare to 800, 000 at present.
• Mississauga downtown will be having 25 new buildings, twelve million potential square feet of new office space and Hurontario Light Rail Transit (LRT) from north to south spine of transit system. Over 3800 businesses and 78000 jobs rely on this line today.

“This year, we reached a major milestone by not only meeting but exceeding our goals, bringing the total amount raised since I first started the food drive four years ago to 1 million dollars and 1 million pounds of food”, said Mayor Crombie

Mayor Crombie concluded “I will continue to make attracting business to Mississauga, my business.”

In her remarks, ICCC Vice President Devika Penekelapati informed the Mayor of Mississauga that the ICCC is planning a major event in the next couple of months – the SME Expo that will showcase the businesses of Canadian small businesses and simultaneously focus on pertinent issues pertaining to small businesses through panel discussions involving specialists and experts.

ICCC President Mr. Pramod Goyal welcomed Mayor along with other present and past board members Mr. Abu Becker, Ms. Sunita Vyas, Mr. Rakesh Joshi, Mr. Chirag Shah, Mr. D P Jain, Ms. Asha Luthra, Mr. Harjit Kalsi, Mr. Jagdish Bajaj and Mr. Pappur Shankar. The event was well attended by the ICCC members and stakeholders.

Toronto: Indo Canada Chamber of Commerce met the visiting Coffee Board of India delegation at the ICCC headquarters on 12^th March 2019. The delegation was led by Mr. N. N. Narendra, IOFS, Director of Finance, Coffee board, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. Delegation visited Canada for the promotion of Indian Coffee Products. India is one of the largest exporter of coffee to Europe and Italy is the largest importer of Indian Robusta Coffee. The delegation was exploring the opportunities for exporting the coffee to Canadian market as Canadians are one of the highest consumers of per capita coffee.

In his detailed presentation, Mr. Narendra said that India is the Seventh largest Coffee producer in the world, produces 3.16 lakh MTs of the worlds’ best Sustainable and Scintillating Coffees. Coffee in India is grown in different geographies, under varying degrees of altitudes and rainfall. These differences bring subtle but exciting variations to the flavour Indian Coffee. Indian coffee is grown under the canopy of two-tier mixed shade, handpicked, sun dried, grown at altitudes above 1000m, nurtured by rich soils, mountain streams and filtered sunlight with diverse ecosystem with rich flora and fauna and it is Eco-friendly. Indian coffee beans are dense, full bodied, and slightly acidic with exciting aroma.

India also produces some specialty coffees such as Monsooned Malabar Coffee, Mysore Nuggets, Robusta Kaapi Royale etc. India also do have world class infrastructure to provide space, product development laboratories for maintaining international standards of the coffee.

Ms. Devika Penekelapati, Corporate Secretary & Vice President ICCC welcomed the delegation and briefed them about the chamber and its activities. ICCC board members Ms. Sunita Vyas and Mr. Rakesh Joshi were also present along with ICCC past Presidents Mr. Sanjay Makkar and Mr. D P Jain.

Please click the following for details of Indian Coffee

• Coffee board presentation
• Coffee Karma: A Guide to Coffee Quality Specifications
• Coffees of India
• Leading Exporters of Indian Coffee

Nourishment 101: Healing, Motivation & a Sprinkle of Indulgence

Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce’s (ICCC) Women Entrepreneurs and Professionals (WEP) Committee celebrated International Women Day on the subject ‘Nourishment 101: Healing, Motivation & a Sprinkle of Indulgence’ on March 8th at the Avani Event Centre in Vaughan. Members of the ICCC, its stakeholders and supporters gave a stupendous reception to the program by participating in large numbers.

ICCC invited Ms. Seema Bhatia an Ayurvedic Practioner, Ms. Yuwika Wadhwa, owner Protein Chefs and Ms. Allison Graham, a motivational speaker from Resiliency Ninja. All the three eminent speakers enlightened the audience on the subject.

Ms. Seema Bhatia in her address to the gathering said that a healthy food is need of the body and soul. She correlated the Yoga and Ayurveda for the healthy life style and said that both go side by side.

Ms. Bhatia is a proponent of Ayurvedic diet, lifestyle and yoga in our daily lives and is tirelessly trying to create momentum for Regulation of Ayurveda in Canada. She is committed towards the cause of health in Mind, Body and Soul.

Ms. Yuvika Wadhwa from Protein Chefs in her brief remarks advocated the importance of healthy and nutrition rich food. She is specialized in healthy, nutritious meals that is delivered from their commercial kitchen to homes and offices.

She had expanded her food business to serve across Ontario with a goal to serve maximum people with healthy and balanced meals.climb.

ICCC Organized an Informative Session on Federal Government Contracting and Intellectual Property Services 

From L to R: Rakesh Joshi, Devika Penekelapati, Chirag Shah, Menelaos Argiropoulos, Darlene Carreau, Prmaod Goyal & Sunita Vyas

The event was well attended by members despite of winter storm. Mr. Chirag Shah introduced the event to the audience. ICCC board members Ms. Devika Penekelapati, Ms. Sunita Vyas and Mr. Rakesh Joshi were also present at the event.

Our sponsor, Telus not only sponsored the refreshments for the event, but also, gave away a smartphone in a raffle prize draw.

ICCC announces new Initiatives; to Open India Chapter

High Commissioner, Mayor Brown Applaud Chamber's work at New year 'Meet & Greet' Event

From L to R: Amb. Dinesh Bhatia, H.E. Vikas Swarup, Mr. Pramod Goyal & Mayor Patrick Brown 

Toronto: Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) organised an exclusive ICCC New Year Meet and Greet at The Vue, at the Royal Woodbine Golf Course on 15 January 2019 to announce new initiatives during 2019 in the presence of ICCC’s key stakeholders and sponsors.

The Chief Guest at the event was His Excellency Vikas Swarup, High Commissioner of India to Canada. Amb. Dinesh Bhatia, Consul General of India in Toronto and His Worship Mayor Patrick Brown, City of Brampton joined as special guests at the event.

ICCC President Mr. Pramod Goyal welcomed all the guests and acknowledged the ICCC’s sponsors. Mr. Goyal also welcomed the ICCC’s newly joined sector sponsor Raymond James Ltd at the event. Mr. Goyal shared his vision and announced several new initiatives that ICCC is taking to further augment member and stakeholder engagement and accelerate promote Canada India bilateral trade & commerce. Addressing the gathering, ICCC President also declared a new team for the office of President to help the chamber in achieving its goals. Amb. Praveen Verma (Retd.), Special Advisor - Government Affairs, Mr. Surinder Sharma, Special Advisor - Partnerships & Strategic Alliances, Mr. Sanjay Chadha, Special Advisor - Fundraising & Sponsor Engagement, Mr. Ashutosh Chauhan, Special Advisor - Business Growth Initiatives, Mr. Sarbjeet S Arora, Advisor - Memberships & Special Events. Ms. Sumeet Dhanju-Dhillon, Special Advisor - Legal Affairs, Mr. Vijay Thomas, Advisor – Information Technology and Mr. Anil Arora, Advisor - Affinity Programs. The team will help in formulating the ICCC vision and roadmap to achieve those goals in a specified time period. 

He also announced that ICCC is working to start a chapter in New Delhi, India very soon. Permanent presence of ICCC in India will help in promoting its mandate in the Indian subcontinent. 

His Excellency Vikas Swarup, High Commissioner of India in Canada and the Chief Guest of the evening applauded the ICCC’s work in the promotion of Canada India business and commercial relations since last 41 years. He also shown his happiness in the new chapter of the chamber in New Delhi, India. He said that the permanent presence of the chamber will help in sustaining its operations in India. It will also be helpful for the chamber to arrange the reciprocal visits of business delegations.

He also suggested the ICCC to strengthen its secretariat for the sustainability in its programs and assured all the help from his office.

Mr. Dinesh Bhatia, Consul General of India appreciated ICCC. 

He said that the office of the Consulate General working closely with the ICCC in the promotion of Canada India bilateral relations and will be continuing to do so in the future as well.

His worship Mayor Patrick Brown, City of Brampton said that he is a great friend of chamber and the City of Brampton is its corporate member. He further said that he worked closely with the chamber and always supported its activities. In the past he attended a number of ICCC led India Missions. He is planning to partner with the ICCC for his upcoming visit to India in February 2019.

ICCC board members Ms. Devika Penekelapati, Mr. Abu Becker, Ms. Sunita Vyas, Mr. Rakesh Joshi and Mr. Chirag Shah were also present along with past presidents and board members of the chamber. ICCC sponsors representatives from Turkish Airline, TD Bank, Crown Group of Hotels, SBI Canada Bank, Peter & Paul, RBC Royal Bank, CPA Ontario, Seneca, Raymond James Ltd, Y-media and Weekly Voice were also present.

Doing Business in India: Opportunities for Canadian IT Firms at GlobalSoft

Mr. D. K. Sareen, CEO Global Soft, Counsel General Amb. Dinesh Bhatia, ICCC President Pramod Goyal and Mr. Nalin Kohli,  Chairman, GlobalSoft

Indo Canada Chamber of Commerce and Consulate General of India in Toronto Jointly organised an informative session on Global Soft 2019 at the ICCC office on Thursday December 13, 2018. Mr. Nalin Kohli, Chairman of Indiasoft and Mr. D.K Sareen, CEO of Indiasoft came all the way from India to interact with the ICCC members. 

Mr. Pramod Goyal, President ICCC in his welcome remarks said that Information technology is accelerating its growth in the all the fields. India is a major player in the sector as it is the largest exporter of software in the world and still growing. He quoted that, “as per NASSCOM IT sector revenues were USD $160 billion in 2017, with USD $99 billion in export earnings, and USA accounting for over 2/3rd of the total IT exports.” During Prime Minister Trudeau’s visit to India earlier this year in February 2018, several MOU’s were signed between the two governments and businesses to promote innovation & entrepreneurship, including setting up of ‘Indo Canada Innovation Bridge’, through a Public Private partnership.