I Canada Keen in India to support logistics and cold chain

Recently, PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry, in association with Canadian High Commission in India, Indo-Canadian Business Chamber and Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce organised a conference on ‘Canada-India Collaboration in Infrastructure, Cold Chains, A

The objective of this Conference at PHD House in New Delhi was to discuss trade-related issues and challenges between India and Canada particularly in the food processing sector; logistics infrastructure sector; regulation of warehousing business; cold chains and agriculture and agri-trade.

The Conference was addressed by

Sharad Jaipuria, President, PHD Chamber; Naval Bajaj, Preident, ICCC; Stewart Beck, High Commissioner of Canada;

Pawanexh Kohli, Chief Advisor, National Centre for Cold Chain Development ( NCCD);

Bal Gosal, Minister of State for Sports, Government of Canada; Tim Uppal, Minister of State for Multiculturalism, Government of Canada; Nadira Hamid, COO, ICBC;

Dinesh Rai, Chairman, WDRA; Manish Agarwal, Vice President, Cold Chain, Gati;

Vinod Asthana, MD, CRWC and several other industry stakeholders. Several industry practitioners also attended the event.

Addressing the gathering, the High Commissioner of Canada mentioned that there is a special bond between India and Canada. “Prime Ministers of both the countries have set the bilateral trade target at $15 billion by the end of the fiscal year 2015,” he pointed out.

Gosal mentioned that India and Canada have longstanding bilateral relationship based on shared democratic values, multi- cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of two societies and have strong people-to-people contacts. He also informed the participants that government of Canada has recognised immigration as very important for the development of Canada, and that India has emerged as the top source of immigrants for the country in recent years.

Bajaj highlighted that in India, cold storage system is shifting from traditional mode to modern one with new technologies and the transportation is being performed by an integrated cold chain.

Earlier in his welcome address, Jaipuria laid stress on the fact that India and Canada have a longstanding bilateral relationship. Together, they can find innovative solutions to both countries expand their highways, increasing ability to generate power, and develop agriculture sector.

Kohli pointed out that food security, research & development and energy should be the focus areas. He suggested that food processing sector of India is highly unexplored hence latest technologies and best practices from other countries like Canada should be adopted. This would not only help in the development of the food processing sector but also assist in building the post harvest infrastructure like Cold Chains & Warehouses.