'Destination USA' Beckons
The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) Gujarat Branch has planned a series of programmes under the focus “Destination USA”. To begin with IACC, Gujarat Branch organized a one-day seminar on Destination USA: Opportunities & Attitude, on 12 January 2008 at Grand Bhagwati. The seminar was addressed by four eminent speakers - S. Dangayach, M.D., Sintex, Rooshi Kumar Pandya, Management Guru, Ramesh G. Shah, Associate Prof. of School of Hospitality Management, USA, and Shailesh Thaker, Management Trainer.

Amal Dhru, Chairman of IACC, Gujarat Branch, made a brief welcome speech on the occasion. He introduced all the speakers to the audience. An over attentive audience of around 180 were spell bound by the knowledge of the eminent speakers.

Dangayach, who delivered the Keynote Address at the seminar, talked about Indo-US business relations. He said the US is a progressive and pragmatic country. “But India is also not far behind,” he said, adding, that “India should lead and come up with force to compete with the US Economy.” He gave example of a small thing like sanitation, Portable sanitation earns approximate one billion dollars as an industry. “In India we have such conditions for sanitation but we don't make use of it,” he said.
Dangayach said US is synonymous with the opportunity. And that's why US is known as the land of opportunities. India is growing at the rate of close to 10 percent. India is the land of entrepreneurs. The sprit of Gujarati's entrepreneurs is par excellent, he said.

Dangayach talked about the need for upgrading the country's education system. “We are a skill deficient country. We have high manpower but manpower is not having appropriate skills. We are extremely poor on that count where as US is extremely rich on that count. Its manpower is also highly skilled. Thus there is a perfect match.

Rooshi Kumar Pandya talked about stress Management and for five minutes he took out stress from the minds of delegates present at the seminar.

Good or Bad manners of others raise stress. People coming from different countries with different environments face a lot of stress. We also find stress in schools, corporates and many other places.
Pandya specifically mentioned that there is danger point in Corporate World. Earlier, the age of President and Vice-President in a corporate company was 45-50 years. Now if a person is a President or Vice-President at the age of 32-35, he will retire at the age of 45 years due to stress. And this is common both in India and the US.

Ramesh Shah talked about “Business Experience, Challenges and Opportunities in USA”. He said Italy went to the US taking Pizza and Pizza became very famous all over the world. “So we have to go to the US taking Paratha. And it will also become very famous as the people in the US are looking for new things.”

US population is 30 millions out of this, 3 millions are Indians and 1 percent of them are Gujarati's. In 1960 Indians in US were 5,000 as compared to 2005 Indians in US are 24,00,000.
In 1997, Indian businesses in the US were 167,000 firms and 491,000 employees. In 2002, there were 223,000 firms and 610,000 employees.

The revolutionary inventions and discoveries made by US are as follows. Shah said that ith the advent of MC Donald there was no eating problem in the US, as there are over 30,000 “MC DONALD” all over the country and every week one MC DONALD is opened.

Then came “Holiday inn”, “Cruz line”, “Wall Mart”, “Dollar stores” and so on, and revolution of all this, changed market completely. It bought the products from every corner of the world at a very cheap rate, and sold them cheaper than any other markets in the US.

Then came “Banking revolution” when everything became online, with the ATM cards, Debit cards, Credit cards, you can take out money from each and every corner of the world. You can pay Electricity bill, Telephone bill, Tax bill directly through online with the ATM card.

“We know that in USA people are fat. Obesity and health care has become. You can come out with any medicine, which can reduce the weight or fatness of the people. By this you can become billionaire in one night,” Shah said.

The Presence of Amon M. Mwamanenge, Minister plenipotentiary, Tanzania high Commission. & NGOGA Eugene Fixer, 1st Counsellor, Embassy of the republic of Rwanda added gravity to the programme. They made a point that Gujarat and Tanzania have been in touch with each other for five to six centuries.

They also invited all to come to Tanzania and Rwanda for doing business.

They invited Gujarati entrepreneurs to do business in the fields of agriculture, textiles, pharmaceutical, tourism, minerals, gems, IT, ect. As they lacked in expertise.

Shailesh Thaker, Management Trainer, talked about International Attitude & Values for a Global Manager.

The fourth eminent speaker was Dr. Shailesh Thaker, who is a great Management Trainer & Human Potentialist. He started with the counting of attitude “ATTITUDE”. A = 1, B =2, ATTITUDE = 100.
He spoke about, what is called “Place Bo Effect”. The person is affected positively by positive suggestions made by seniors, peers, and superiors. Then there is “Pygmalion Effect”. you achieve what you expect to achieve and what others expect you to achieve. This effect is from negative to positive. The third is Nocabo Effect, that is negative to negative and then positive. It is negative from top line to bottom line and then it becomes positive from bottom to top.

According to him “Competing + Skill + Attitude = Success”.

“Dull people talk about other people. Average people talk about events. And Good people talk about work”. So we should have an Attitude towards work, he said.

The Vice-Chairman, Kaizar Mahuwala, compered the whole programme and delivered the vote of thanks. The main sponsors were DNA as Media Partner, The Grand Bhagwati Group of Hotels as Event Host. The session sponsors were Lancer Laser Tech Reliance Industries and Citi Bank. Electrotherm sponsored Tea/Coffee break. Seminars well-wishers were Naroda Nagrik Bank, Airtel, Shital Motors, Maps India and Gujarat Gouravas.

'Sister City' MOU between Ahmedabad & Columbus
The Gujarat Branch of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce has had the privilege of playing an important role in signing a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) between Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and Columbus Ohio, USA as “SISTER CITIES”. The Agreement was signed on 6 February 2008 at the AMC premises.

Delegates from Columbus Ohio, USA - Edward P. Fisher (Executive Director, CSCI), Nirmal K. Sinha (Deputy Director, Public Utilities, City of Columbus Ohio), Niranjan (Neil) Patel (President Ganpati Inc.) and from Ahmedabad city, Amitbhai Shah (Mayor, Ahmedabad City), Dinesh K. Makwana (Dy. Mayor), I.P. Gautam (Municipal Commissioner), Capt Dilipkumar J.Mahajan (Deputy Commissioner) and IACC Branch Chairman Amal Dhru , Branch Council Members & Branch Secretariat.

“Indo-American Chamber of Commerce” has played a pivotal role in achieving this historical and very important agreement for Ahmedabad. Delegates from Columbus Ohio, USA and Ahmedabad Muncipal Corporation both were very thankful to “Indo-American Chamber of Commerce” & also visited IACC Gujarat Branch Office in this regard. The delegation also called on Chief Minister Narendra Modi along with IACC Branch Chairman Amal Dhru and Council Members. The event of “SISTER CITY” agreement was highly successful. This agreement will involve cultural, educational & business exchanges between the two cities even as the city would emulate Columbus experiences in the BRTS, riverfront and other projects.

In addition to this IACC, Gujarat Branch has also received a letter from Michael S. Owen (Consul General, USA), Thanking and Congratulating Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, Gujarat Branch for playing such an important & key role in bringing the Agreement to its conclusion.

Budget: International Trade & Investment
IACC Gujarat Branch organized a programme on “Budget-2008: International Trade and Investments” on 5 March 2008 at Gajjar Hall, Law Garden, Ahmedabad.

Eminent speakers such as Ajay Shah (Associative Director, Ernst & Young, Mumbai), spoke on Direct Taxes and the Regulatory Amendments. Uday Pimprikar (Associative Director, Ernst & Young, Mumbai), spoke on Indirect Tax & the Regulatory Amendments, Devang Nanavati (Lead India Fame) spoke on Common man & overall Impact & Mr. Ravindra Dholakia (Economist, IIM-A) spoke on Gujarat & International Business and Amal Dhru, Chairman, IACC, was the anchor of this interesting interactive Budget programme.

Dhru said that this year's Union Budget had created the desired and expected vibrations, debates, and controversies. “In fact, the best thing that the Budget does to our economy is that it sets many minds to work, enables exchange of ideas, and virtually turns the national attention towards our economy,” he added.

According to Nanavati, the Budget kept in view the interests of small farmers and voters. He was in favor of imposing tax on farmers earning above 10 lakh.

Dholakia said, the investment climate was very favorable and it was announced that India had joined the club of high savers with 28 percent of the savings rate. Ajay Shah & Uday Pimprikar gave correct idea of Direct and Indirect Tax.

Tamil Nadu Branch
Getting Corporates & NGOs to Interact on CSR
The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (Tamil Nadu Branch) organized an event of discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), a topic of great relevance to today's society, on 22 February 2008 at Hotel Taj.

David T Hopper, Consul General, American Consulate General Chennai, the Chief Guest at the event, talked about Why CSR? Hiren Shah, Chairman of IACC-TN, welcomed the chief guest and the participants at the event.

Ms. Nagori, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Taj Group of Hotels, S. Ramamurthy, Director, Cognizant Foundation, Chennai and Mustafa Moochhala, Managing Director, Innobridge Consulting, elaborated about the NGO's role in the current trend, and NGO's survival and market capitalization etc,.

The event was very unique and special since IACC-TN was able to bring corporates and NGOs together on a common platform. The event was also unique because the NGOs not only presented their difficulties in obtaining funds but were able to understand how to approach corporates for their specific demands. The corporates in turn through their audio-visual presentation were able to demonstrate the hierarchy and decision making patterns for fund approvals and releases to NGOs. There was very good interaction between the audience and the speakers.

Seminar on Enabling Business Infrastructure
The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) Tamil Nadu branch organized a seminar on “Enabling Business Infrastructure” in Chennai on 19 January 2008. The speakers were Ms. Ragini Peter, Vice President, Sri City, Ramesh Nair, Managing Director, Jones Lang Lasalle. From the Chamber's side, Farokh T Balsara, National President, Vinay Agarwal, Regional President, SIC, Hiren Shah, Chairman, TN-Branch and R.K.Chopra, Secretary General, IACC, addressed the gathering.
About 60 members from different parts of India participated in the seminar, organized in connection with the National Executive Committee meeting on that day. The role of SEZ in providing infrastructure for the different kinds of industries, its challenges, trends in modern work and places futuristic views were discussed in the seminar.

Karnataka Branch
Summit Highlights India as Global
Hub for Sourcing & Supply Management
The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, together with the International Supply Management Institute (SMI), organized an “India Sourcing Summit” at Windsor Manor Hotel in Bangalore on 8 and 9 February, 2008. The Summit was one of India's premier events on sourcing and supply management and showcased the country as a global centre for the same.

The two-day knowledge event, supported by the Indo American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) brought together the “who is who” of Corporate India, as well as business leaders from international companies and experts from academic institutions. Some of the eminent speakers at the summit included Seshasayee, MD, Ashok Leyland; Vaideesh, MD, Johnson & Johnson India, Capt. Gopinath, Executive Chairman, Deccan Aviation and Ravichandran, President, TVS Logistics.

The Conference was structured to provide maximum benefit to participants, through key-note addresses, plenary sessions, workshops and parallel working sessions.


Pennsylvania Firms Keen on Trade with India
A multi-sector Trade Mission from the State of Pennsylvania, USA visited Bangalore on 13 and 14 February 2008. Pennsylvania Trade Office India in cooperation with Bangalore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCIC) and Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC), Karnataka branch organized an interactive meeting with the visiting delegation on the first day.

Pennsylvania Trade Mission participating companies included: Allegheny Bradford Corporation, InfraScan, Inc, Kibow Biotech, Inc, Philadelphia International Medicine, Top Line Process Equipment Company and Universal Industrial Gases, Inc and one University viz. The Pennsylvania State University- Greater Allegheny Campus (PSU-GA) also participated in the Mission.

The meeting was addressed by Peter O'Neill, Executive Director, Center for Trade Development, Department of Community & Economic Development, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He highlighted the growing interest of Pennsylvania companies in exploring business opportunities in international markets with special focus on growing trade with India.

India's top imports from Pennsylvania in 2006 amounted to US$ 296.5 million and consisted of machinery ($53.7mn), computer & electronics ($44.5mn.), chemicals($41.5mn), primary metal manufacturing ($39.3mn.), transportation equipment ($17.2mn), electrical equipment & appliances ($13.7mn), plastics & rubber ($ 11.7mn.), and fabricated metal ($9mn.).

Pennsylvania's Authorized Trade Representative offices in India, located in Bangalore and Mumbai work with Pennsylvania companies to increase trade with India.
The meeting provided an excellent opportunity to Chamber members to interact with the delegates and explore possibilities of business cooperation.

IACC CEO Networking

The Indo American Chamber of Commerce (IACC), Karnataka organized a CEO Networking Event for its members on 22 February 2008 at Hotel Le-Meridien Bangalore.

The evening included a featured talk on 'Growth drivers and Risks in the Indian Economy: A Medium-term Perspective' by Dr. Subir Gokarn, Chief Economist, Standard & Poor's Asia Specific.

The presentation highlighted the significant shift in global economic power towards China over the next five years. This trend makes China the world's largest economy and significantly concentrates economic activity in the three giants, China, the US and India. Against this backdrop, the speaker examined some key domestic drivers of growth and the macroeconomic context in which they are likely to operate. While this is a broadly positive story, the presentation also took into account some significant risk factors, which, it argues, are largely attributable to inadequate public policy responses to the growth momentum. Finally, global patterns, domestic drivers and risk factors are brought together to visualize three possible medium-term scenarios for the Indian economy.
The evening was sponsored by Juniper Networks India Pvt Ltd.

Seminar on Immigrant & Non-Immigrant Vias
The Indo American Chamber of Commerce, Karnataka Branch organized a Seminar on “US Immigrant & Non Immigrant Visas” on 17 January, 2008 at Hotel Taj Gateway, Bangalore.
Rajkrishna S Iyer, an Attorney admitted in India & California and Member of THE CHUGH FIRM in Los Angeles, addressed the participants. The topics addressed at the seminar were
• Introduction Immigrant & Non Immigrant Visas
• H1-B & L1 Holistic View, Which is better for you?
• Blanket L1
• Greed Card
• Recent Trends USCIS / Consulate
The Chugh Firm, an exclusive affiliate of Universal Legal sponsored the seminar. The seminar was well attended and very informative.