World Chambers Congress focus on SME strategy for sustainable business

The ninth World Chambers Congress (WCC), Turino 2015 WCC, was held in Turin, Italy recently.

Over 1,000 delegates representing a large number of leaders of business chambers, trade and industry association of the world were present.

The central focus during the all the sessions of the Congress were identifying the needs of SMEs and the skills and know-how needed to support their businesses, to foster sustainable economic development and trade.

An important session on Finance for SMEs was spearheaded by a Sri Lankan expert on financial inclusion, Chairman, Banking With The Poor Network, Chandula Abeywickrema.

Abeywickrema outlined several important points such as capacity building for sustainable enterprise creation through an inclusive SME strategy, redefining the micro, small and medium enterprises models for business sustainability, role of the business chambers and industry association making SMEs bank and finance ready, partnership between SMEs and SMPs for business empowerment, links to supply and value chains for business sustainability, making financial services available, accessible and affordable to SMEs and commercialisation of and graduation of SMEs.

The topics at the Turin Congress which created value and interest were, Global trade in the 21st century, Access to finance for SMEs, Institutional dispute resolution, Trust in Government, Principles that power exceptional governance, Setting G20 business priorities, Global mobility, Youth entrepreneurship training, Business leadership on climate change adaptation and Innovations and best practices and insights.