Durban sets bar high
DURBAN has set the bar high for future gatherings of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (Gopio International) – and its new mission to actively engage the South African national, local and city governments in helping to build the economy and social cohesion.
The organisation’s three-day business summit and gala awards banquet at Coastlands Hotel in uMhlanga, ended on Sunday.
Heaping praise on the local organisers at the executive committee meeting on Sunday, Noel Lal, the Fijian-born vice-president who runs a thriving engineering firm in Sydney, Australia, said this was one of the best events he had attended.
“You have set the bar high for Bahrain, the host of our annual convention in November.”
The executive committee singled out Africa co-ordinator Ishwar Ramlutchman for relaunching Gopio International in the region, with Joburg and Cape Town launches later this year.
Ramlutchman, who has the ears of the king as a member of one of the Zulu regiments, said the monarch was impressed with the number of awards handed out to distinguished Indians and had asked the non-governmental organisation to host a business summit in his royal heartland in Nongoma, northern KwaZulu-Natal, for local entrepreneurs and rural women involved in the cottage industry of making cultural beads and handicrafts.
Gopio’s international chairman, Dr Thomas Abraham, rounded off the summit with three resolutions, all unanimously adopted, including a Durban Declaration for Social and Economic Prosperity and Peace in Africa, in which Gopio International and global diaspora Indians will foster closer relations.