British South Indian Chamber of Commerce (BSICC) in partnership with UK Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce (UKTNCC) organised the 2nd UK Tamil Nadu & Puducherry Business Meet 2014 on 8th May 2014 at Houses of Parliament, Westminster, London. BSICC has been conducting few business meetings over the years, such as UK South India Business Meet, UK Karnataka Business Meet, UK Kerala Business Meet and various other state Business Meets at the Houses of Parliament.
This year UK Tamilnadu business meet was chaired by Mr Virendra Sharma MP (Southall, UK). The audience included representatives from Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Members of House of Lords & House of Commons, representatives from other Indian states/ other countries and businessmen from India who are successful in UK. One of the notable attendees for the business meet was Mr.Bharat Joshi, British Deputy High Commissioner in Chennai, who was also the Chief Guest of the day.
The event started with a formal welcome speech by BSICC Patron Mr.Virendra Sharma MP, Ealing Southall. This was followed by a brief overview of UK Tamil Nadu & Puducherry Business Meet by Mr.Jacob Ravibalan, BSICC Vice Chair for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and Founder Director UKTNCC. Mr.Bharat Joshi, British Deputy High Commissioner based in Chennai, spoke about the historical relationship between UK and Tamil Nadu. Following this, Mr. Hasmukh Vora, President of Hindustan Chamber of Commerce, based out of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, offered his perspective of pursuing business activities in Tamil Nadu & Puducherry.
Our Chairman, Christie spoke about how good an investment destination Tamil Nadu and Puducherry is. Dr. R. Seetharaman who is the Group Chief Executive Officer of Doha Bank in Qatar gave a detailed information about some of the opportunities for UK residents and Global Tamilians in the Gulf. Mr.David Happy, who was till recently the Vice President EU Affairs for Samsung Electronics, spoke about India UK collaborations and how the UK is a hugely effective springboard into the rest of the EU-27 for Indian companies and twice as big as the USA and a wealthy region.
Mr. Velou Singara of UKTNCC spoke about various business opportunities in Puducherry for UK companies. Mrs Kamala Sekar who was till recently the Head of Export Finance at UKTI spoke about the channels of support from UK public sector and BSICC/ UKTNCC. UKTNCC Founder Director Mr. Sundar Subbiah offered the strategy and roadmap for UKTNCC. Vote of Thanks for given by Siv Matchendran – Founder Director of UKTNCC.
Mr. Karthik Durgaprasad Founder of UKTNCC gave more details about the business meet “UKTNCC was launched in 2013. The business meet was a huge success and we had participation of more than 150 delegates from Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, United Kingdom and Middle East participating in the meet. Following the business meet, we are hopeful that few UK based companies will start exploring business opportunities to invest in Tamil Nadu and Puducherrry.
From BSICC’s side Mr. Sujit Coordinated the entire event, who also said to us that the next South Indian Business event would be around the first week of July.
