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Mississauga Mayor Crombie keen to expand ties with India

22 Jul 2015 8:45 PM | Anonymous

Mississauga Mayor Crombie keen to expand ties with India

ICCC President Mr. Makkar with Mayor Bonnie Crombie

Mayor of Mississauga, Her Worship Bonnie Crombie is hopeful that she would be able to join Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce’s India Mission 2016. She also expressed a keen interest in developing close working relationship between the City of Mississauga and the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce with special emphasis on sunrise sectors such as ICT, Life - sciences, bio-medicine, aerospace, and agri-foods.

Mayor Crombie was speaking on the occasion of an interactive session between the senior officials of the City of Mississauga and the newly-elected members of the ICCC’s board. The board members who were present at the interaction included Mr. Sanjay Makkar, President, ICCC; Mr. Jagdish Bajaj, Vice President, Programs & Events; Mr. Arun Srivastava, Vice President, Finance & Sponsorship; Mr. Ajay Tandon, Director, Affinity; Mr. Kanwar Dhanjal, Director, SME & Trade; Mr. Abu Becker, Director, Membership; Mr. Pappur Shankar, Director, Mining and Energy.

Mr. Makkar expressed confidence that ICCC will succeed in channelizing synergies between the Chamber and Mississauga, especially on areas of common business interest. Emphasizing the need to tap the burgeoning growth of Mississauga-based Indo-Canadian small businesses, he said, the Chamber’s India Missions have become a catalyst for local businesses to expand their horizons and forge linkages with small entrepreneurs in India.

The ICCC President discussed his plans as during his tenure, and said that the Chamber would stay focussed to promote trade and business at the grassroots level. He delineated the ICCC’s approach of fostering relations between fast-growing Canadian cities such as Mississauga, and Indian corporate sector, especially the small businesses. He sought Mayor Crombie’s support in this endeavour. “We look forward to many more interactions between the City of Mississauga and our Chamber during your tenure.”

Ms. Susan Amring, the Director of Mississauga’s Economic Development, and Mr. Robert Trewartha, Chief of Staff of Mayor, were also present during the session. During the discussion, the participants broached upon various deliverable that could result from cooperation between Mississauga and ICCC. These could include attracting Indian investment in Mississauga, launching of an Indian corporate entity’s office in Mississauga, promoting two-way tourism, and helping new immigrants’ settlement programs and activities.

Following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Canada in April, the relationship between Canada and India has been considerably elevated. This relationship will be further heightened following Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to visit India in 2016. In this context, it may be recalled that Mayor Crombie has already expressed a desire to be involved with PM Modi’s smart cities project, and is keen to share Mississauga’s experience and knowhow in developing public infrastructure and leveraging its inherent strength to expand its economic base.

From L to R: Pappur Shankar, Jagdish Bajaj, Ajay Tandon, Susan Amring, Sanjay Makkar, Bonnie Crombie,
Abu Becker, Kanwar Dhanjal & Arun Srivastava

ICCC July 2015 E-Newsletter

07 Jul 2015 8:52 PM | Anonymous

Click here to access the newsletter:ICCC July 2015 E-Newsletter

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ICCC's new board meets Consul General of India in Toronto

30 Jun 2015 3:35 PM | Anonymous

Meeting with Mr. Akhilesh Mishra, CGI

ICCC’s newly elected board led by its President Mr. Sanjay Makkar met Mr. Akhilesh Mishra, Consulate General of India. Mr. Makkar discussed in details his plans for the coming year and assured the CGI that “chamber will be second to none in promoting Canada India business relations”.

Mr. Mishra emphasized the need to increase Canada India commercial ties and said that the reciprocal visits of two Prime Minister will serve as milestones in strategizing the relations between the two countries. Mr. Mishra discussed the opportunities available in the sectors such as IT, energy, power, mining etc. He expressed a keen desire to engage the big companies along with the small and medium enterprises for doing business with India. Collaboration and cooperation in the education sector is another area for mutual understanding with immense scope.

Mr. Makkar said that at Chamber “we look forward to many more interactions between the Consulate and our Chamber during your tenure.” All the new directors were present at the meeting.

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Sanjay Makkar elected as 27th President of ICCC-25-06-15

25 Jun 2015 6:30 PM | Anonymous

Sanjay Makkar elected as 27th President of ICCC

Sanjay Makkar was elected as 27th President of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) Thursday June 25 at the Chamber’s Annual General Meeting.

Six directors were also elected to the new board of the Chamber. These include one director from the outgoing board – Pathik Baxi who has been re-elected for a two-year term.

Five new directors elected are:

• Abubakkar Noohujohn
• Ajay Tandon
• Arun Srivastava
• Kanwarjit Dhanjal
• Pappur Shankar

All of them have been elected for a two-year term. For the first time in the Chamber’s history, the elections of the directors were held through electronic voting, and it received an unprecedented participation. Former president Rakesh Goenka, who was the returning officer, announced the results.

Mr. Makkar, along with Jagdish Bajaj and Ginni Sethi are the other elected directors on the board, who were elected last year, and are in the middle of their two-year term.

Speaking about his priorities, the new president emphasized that while the board will ensure continuity, it will be geared towards radically changing the orientation of the chamber.

“2015 will be a year of change,” he declared.

Mr. Makkar said he would follow a three-pronged approach during his tenure as the Chamber’s President:

Governance & Transparency: Making chamber’s operations accountable to stakeholders
Robust financials: Raising revenue from diverse sources, and rationalizing expenses
Broad based, inclusive growth: Membership growth to focus on small entrepreneurs across Canada

Mr. Makkar added: “The 2015 will be a year when the chamber’s leadership will work together with stakeholders and members to bring about better governance, make the operation completely transparent, work towards making the financials more robust and make the chamber’s composition more inclusive and broad based.”

He also said that for a community that is growing rapidly, the Chamber should reflect the complexity and the diversity of the Indo Canadians, and especially cater to the needs of those members who are entrepreneurs and professionals.

More than a 250 members participated in the Chamber’s annual general meeting, including several past presidents and former board members. Former President Ravi Seethapathy chaired the meeting.

Mr. Brij K Sharma, Vice President, Finance & SME submitted the financial statement for 2014-15.

Sitting: From L to R: Pappur Shankar, Ginni Sethi, Sanjay Makkar, Dharma P Jain, Arun Srivastava

Standing from L to R: Abubakkar Noohujohn, Jagdish Bajaj, Ajay Tandon & Pathik Baxi

Drake’s INTELLIGENT HELP – Your One-Stop-Shop for HR Solutions -18-06-15

18 Jun 2015 6:30 PM | Anonymous

Drake’s INTELLIGENT HELP – Your One-Stop-Shop for HR Solutions

From L to R: Sanjay Makkar, Dharma P Jain, Maysa Hawwash, Brij K Sharma & Annie Singh

The Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce organized an interactive session introducing Drake’s INTELLIGENT HELP HR Portal – Your One-Stop-Shop for HR Solutions on 18-June 2015 at the ICCC headquarters.

Ms. Maysa Hawwash, National Manager for INTELLIGENT HELP at Drake International, was the guest speaker.

She highlighted the importance of Human Capital as the biggest value driver for organizations. She also threw light on the key HR issues faced by SMEs and how the inability to manage these people issues causes a huge adverse impact on the organizations and their bottom line.

The event was marked by the introduction of the innovative Drake INTELLIGENT HELP portal that leverages Drake’s 60+ years of Talent management experience and modern technology, to help SMEs find answers to their specific people challenges in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The audience experienced a LIVE DEMONSTRATION of the INTELLIGENT HELP portal that gives ICCC member’s access to HR services and best practices needed to run their day-to-day business. ICCC members also have access to practical advice on critical people issues through free Drake white papers and webinars.

Drake offered FREE P3 personality assessment and 2-week access to the HR Helpline service to all the ICCC members who attended the event. All ICCC members have a 10% discount when they purchase three or more Drake HR services.

Mr. Dharma P Jain, President, ICCC in his welcome remarks conveyed thanks to Ms. Maysa Hawwash and the Drake team – Ms. Annie Singh and Ms. Ekta Kaur - for offering the valuable Intelligent Help portal to ICCC members and for spending their time to interact with the ICCC members.

Mr. Sanjay Makkar, Director Affinity Programs ICCC, highlighted that the session was aimed to create awareness among the Chamber’s membership regarding the HR services available through Drake’s Intelligent Help portal and how they could add tremendous value to the SME fraternity to help them run their businesses effectively.

Mr. Brij K. Sharma, Vice President - Finance & SME at ICCC, was also present at the event.

Ms. Annie Singh from Drake International introduced the speaker to the audience.

Session in Progress

Dinner reception in Honour of H.E. Vishnu Prakash, High Commissioner of India to Canada - 10-06-15

10 Jun 2015 6:30 PM | Anonymous

Dinner reception in Honour of H.E. Vishnu Prakash, High Commissioner of India to Canada

Sitting From L to R: Ginni Sethi, Asha Seth, Dipika Damerla, Rajni Tekriwal, Amrit Mangat
Standing From L to R: Jagdish Bajaj, Hardesh Marwaha, Tony Chawla, Dharma P Jain, H.E. Vishnu Prakash, Brij K Sharma & Sanjay Makkar

Indian Diaspora is the real ambassadors of India who are working hard to brand India in Canada Said High Commissioner Vishnu Prakash while speaking at the dinner reception hosted by Indo Canada Chamber of Commerce on June 10, 2015.

He further said that ICCC has played an important role in forging relations between India and Canada for nearly four decades. Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Canada this year added new depth to relationship which has the potential for a very strong economic partnership. Canada’s rich natural resources and sophisticated technological and educational base give us great promise to deepen our engagement. Canada can be a true partner in India’s infrastructure development, food security, energy security, science & technology, higher education and clean energy.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Dharma P Jain, President, ICCC said that ICCC is 38 years old organisation representing the Indo-Canadian businesses community. Chamber was conferred Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award in 2012 for its effort to promote Canada India ties. Government of India must strengthen its presence in Canada. Over last few years, the Canadian government has expanded its presence in India substantially, said Mr. Jain. He further said that the signing of Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) will pave the way for more business to achieve the US $ 15 billion trade target in next couple of years.

Ms. Dipika Damerla, Associate Minister of Healthcare and Long Term appreciated Chamber’s role in building Canada brand strategy at a time when Canada-India relations are at historic high point.

Ms. Amrit Mangat, MPP also appreciated Chamber for promoting the Canada India bilateral trade and commercial economic relations.

Mr. Tony Chawla, Vice President ICCC welcomes all the guests and introduced the evening.

Mrs. Rajni Tekriwal, Vice President & Corporate Secretary ICCC introduced the High Commissioner to the audience.

Guests at the event

Annual Awards & Gala Night 2015-06-06-15

06 Jun 2015 6:30 PM | Anonymous

Annual Awards & Gala Night 2015

2015 Award Winners with ICCC's board of directors

Asim Ghosh, keynote speaker

Mayor John Tory, Chief Guest

John Tory, Mayor City of Toronto was the Chief Guest at the 24th Annual Awards & Gala Night on Saturday June 06 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in downtown Toronto.

Mayor John Tory said that he is working to manifold the relations with India and appreciated the recent visit of Prime Minister Modi to strengthen the bilateral relations.

He applauded the chamber’s contribution in promoting the bilateral trade and commercial relations and shown his willingness to cooperate with India for developing smart cities.

Mr. Asim Ghosh, President & CEO of Husky Energy was the keynote speaker for the evening. While accepting the Corporate executive Award of the year from Dharma P Jain, ICCC’s President, he said that India is a hot market . . . a seductive place for people who think they can make a quick return from a pool of 1.2 billion consumers. While many other countries are at a similar level of development, India has a resource of intellectual and managerial capital still to be tapped, Ghosh said.

The Annual Gala and Awards Night is a marquee event where ICCC promotes trade and commerce between India and Canada and recognize the achievements of Indo-Canadians from all across Canada by way of an award presentation. Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce’s Advisory Board independently chooses the award recipients. In 2015, MNP, LLP was tasked with conducting due diligence of the nominations received.

The 2015 award recipients included a spectacular mix of community stalwarts, entrepreneurs, professionals, academics, and young achievers. The evening, replete with entertainment skits and speeches from VIPs, was attended by over 800 guests comprising the who’s who of the Indo-Canadian society.

The 2015 recipients of ICCC’s Annual Awards & Gala Night include:

Category	Award Winner	Sponsor
Female Entrepreneur	Nisha Amin	CIBC
Male Entrepreneur	Prashant Pathak	CIBC
Female Professional	Neeru Gupta	Excel Funds
Male Professional	Manjul Bhargava	Collins Barrow LLP
Young Achiever	Hargurdeep Singh & Avish Sood	Courtyard by Marriott
Technology Achievement	Rajiv Manucha	TD Bank
Corporate Executive	Asim Ghosh	ICICI Bank
Humanitarian	Jag Parmar	Bromed Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Lifetime/Outstanding Achievement	Venkatesh Mannar	State Bank of India (Canada)
Member of the Year	Avinash Mehra	Air Canada
President's Award	Frank Scarpitti	Johnnie Walker

Female Entrepreneur: Nisha Amin		Male Entrepreneur: Prashant Pathak
Female Professional: Neeru Gupta (her son receives the award on her behalf)		Male Professional: Manjul Bhargava

Young Achievers: Hargurdeep Singh & Avish Sood (in the middle)

Technology Achievement: Rajiv Manucha		Corporate Executive: Asim Ghosh
Humanitarian: Jag Parmar		Lifetime Achivement: Venkatesh Mannar
Members of the Year: Avinash Mehra		Andy Taylor receiving the Award on behalf of Mayor Frank Scarpitti

In his Presidential address, Dharma P Jain, said, “Recent visit of Prime Minister Modi will elevate Canada-India bilateral relations to a strategic partnership. ICCC has contributed by pioneering ideas to develop a road map for a modern and strategic partnership. As the only bilateral chamber of commerce working to foster trade between Canada and India, we are always alive to pronouncements that can be turned into effective tools for policy formulations.

Our Chamber understands the growing role of cities both in Canada and India for trade and economic matters, and has been a pioneer in developing city-centric trade missions from Canada to India, he further said.”

The South Building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) was extravagantly decorated by Karma Designs. The four entertainment segments were produced by Divya Kumar Bollywood Dance. The Host provided the catering services.

ICCC-CIBC’s offers for Newcomers to Canada -05-05-15

05 May 2015 6:30 PM | Anonymous

CIBC’s offers for Newcomers to Canada
From L to R: Tony Chawla, Rajeev Misra, Hassan Pirnia, Dharma P Jain, Raza Hasan, Rajni Tekriwal & Sanjay Makkar
Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce organized an interactive session on Opportunities available with the CIBC for the newcomers to Canada on 05-May 2015 at the ICCC headquarter. Mr. Hassan Pirnia, Vice President of Marketing Solutions and Client Offers at CIBC responsible for direct marketing, analytics, and offer development across the retail bank was the guest speaker. He focused his discussion on the simple topics pertaining to the new immigrants and started with the overview of Immigration in Canada from different parts of the world. Ontario is the recipient of highest number of new immigrants every year followed by Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. He also throw light on economic impact on the new immigrants and how it is impacting the newcomers Profile & Insights. South Asians being the largest visible minority will have the highest purchasing power and consumer spending in the coming years, he said. He stated that CIBC in their welcome to Canada Package offered the newcomers with free bank account for first year, safety deposit box for Newcomers to store up valuables, credit card with no deposit or credit history required, overdraft protection and most important the mortgage with no Canadian history required. Mr. Dharma P Jain, President, ICCC in his welcome remarks conveyed thanks to Mr. Hassan Pirnia for sparing his time to interact with the ICCC members. He further said that CIBC is chamber’s lead corporate sponsor. Mrs. Rajni Tekriwal, Vice President & Corporate Secretary ICCC said, that the session was aimed to create awareness among the Chamber’s membership regarding the opportunities available with the CIBC’s for the new comers to Canada. Mr. Tony Chawla, Vice President ICCC gave a vote of thanks. ICCC board members Mr. Sanjay Makkar, Ms. Ginni Sethi, Mr. Hardesh Marwaha were also present at the event. Mr. Rajeev Misra introduced the speaker to the audience.
Session in progress

ICCC: Post budget roundtable with Minister Tim Uppal & Minister Bal Gosal - 01-05-2015

01 May 2015 12:30 PM | Anonymous

ICCC: Post budget roundtable with Minister Tim Uppal & Minister Bal Gosal

Minister Tim Uppal and Minister Bal Gosal with Pramod Goyal, Jaspal Singh, Rakesh Joshi, Ritesh Malik, Rajni Tekriwal, Dharma P Jain & Sanjay Brahmbhatt

Indo-Canada Chamber Commerce (ICCC) held an interactive post budget session with Hon. Tim Uppal, Minister of State (Multiculturalism) and Hon. Bal Gosal, Minister of State (Sports) at ICCC head office, Toronto on 1 May 2015.

Dharma P Jain, President ICCC chaired the roundtable. He welcomed the economic action plan 2015 aimed to create well-paying and secure jobs for Canadians, lower taxes for Canadian families and businesses, tax relief for low- and middle-income Canadians, new Family Tax Cut and Universal Child Care Benefit enhancements and balance the budget.

“The chamber welcomes the government’s effort to reduce the budget deficit from $55.6 billion at the height of the global economic and financial crisis to a projected surplus of $1.4 billion for 2015–16,” Jain said.

Minister Uppal in his remarks affirmed that the small and medium businesses are the major drivers of our economy and we have taken care of them so the Canadians will get the maximum return of their tax dollars.

Minister lauded the efforts of ICCC for developing deep business relations with emerging markets like India. The signing of CEPA with India will open up the new avenues for the businesses to develop more robust trade ties with India.

Minister Gosal said that our government is committed to more growth with lower tax rates and more benefits to our citizens. Government has delivered what has been committed in the past for families and small businesses. “The government adopted an all inclusive approach to consult the people through different channels prior to our budget drafting”, Minister said.

Rajni Tekriwal, ICCC Vice President & Corporate Secretary said that the ICCC is working to promote the Canada India bilateral trade ties and also raised the issue of amortization period as it is very hard for the new immigrants.

Apart from this Mr. Kanwar Dhanjal, Chair ICCC Gala Committee, Mr. Jagmohan Nanda, Mr. Rakesh Joshi and Mr. Sanjay Brahmbhatt also actively participated in the roundtable discussion.

Roundtable in progress

Roundtable in progress

ICCC-Hard hat tour-Sheridan 02-04-15

02 Apr 2015 5:30 PM | Anonymous

ICCC organised its hard tour to Sheridan’s Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies

From L to R: Iain McNab, Kanwar Dhanjal, Farzad Reyegani, Dharma P Jain, Tony Chawla, Naval Bajaj, Manjit Singh & Jayne Pilot

Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) in collaboration with Brampton Board of Trade (BBOT) organised its hard hats tour of the Sheridan’s Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies on 02 April 2015, which was attended by ICCC members. This was an innovative learning opportunity for the members as they were given a privileged “behind the scenes” tour of Sheridan.

Mr. Dharma P Jain, President of the Chamber welcome all participants and thanked Sheridan for cordially accepting Chamber's request for arranging a tour of Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies. Mr. Jain said that Centre is providing state of the art training to the new students and getting them ready with future skills which will become backbone of Canadian industries. President also welcomed the joint initiative taken by Chamber and BBOT and urged organizing more such joint events in future.

Dr. Jeff Zabudsky, President & CEO Sheridan College welcomed all the guests and said that Sheridan is a very old and dynamic institute and always comes to forefront for adapting new techniques for imparting training to the students.

Dr. Farzad Rayegani, Associate Dean and Professor, Sheridan College in his remarks briefed that the Sheridan college has the most sophisticated 3D Production System (based on FDM material) in the market, positioning its Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies (CAMDT) to better help Canadian manufacturers achieve and maintain competitiveness, while training the next generation of manufacturing professionals.

The members of the chamber visited the ABB Robotics training lab and chemical engineering lab at Sheridan college which features over 15 robots and related work cells, software and controllers, and will allow students and industry partners to gain training in applications that include robotic welding; picking, packing and palletizing; machine tending, material handling and product assembly, and advanced vision related programming.

Mr. Tony Chawla, Vice President Events, Mr. Naval Bajaj, Immediate past president, Mr. Todd Letts B. SC., MBA, CEP BBOT, Mr. Badar Shamim, BBOT were also present along with over 50 participants from chamber and BBOT.