Members of the Confederation of Indian Industry and GCEL met in Mumbai to consider how Indian business can best take advantage of the HumaWealth program. HumaWealths’ open–architecture technology and unique governance arrangements are set to give a major boast to Indian firms, specially small and medium sized firms.” K.V. Mahidhar, head of CII’s Institute of Logistics said, “GCELs excellent Global Initiative provides a push to India’s goal of moving into the global top ten in the logistics industry.
Mumbai India, August 30, 2010 — The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has invited India’s leading finance, insurance, and technology firms to become part of an innovative global initiative and seize a new $6 trillion market opportunity. At a major event attended by India’s public officials and executives from leading Indian companies, CII announced that GCEL’s HumaWealth Program will be an important catalyst in connecting India with growing markets around the world, making its millions of Small Medium- sized Enterprises (SMEs) more profitable and more competitive, thereby fueling new economic growth.
Dr. Sarita Nagpal, CII Deputy Director General delivered introductory remarks at the HumaWealth Genesis Awareness Event held in Mumbai introducing to India’s public and private sectors: “A New Era of 21st Century Trade Efficiency”. CII and GCEL invited leading financial, insurance and technology institutions to learn more about the innovative HumaWealth Program that will deploy bold Soft Infrastructure in India and around the world, delivering the tools and the road map required to connect the strengths of India’s SMEs creating well-being across India, the region and the world.
“The physical infrastructure to connect economies is important but costly, takes a long time, and must be justified and prioritized. Therefore, in today’s technology era, Soft-Infrastructure will boost the efficiency of the present physical infrastructure and rapidly connect the strengths of India’s SMEs within the country and with the world”, said Capt. Samuel Salloum, GCEL Co-Chairman. Furthermore he added: “By maximizing on rapid deployment of the Soft-Infrastructure, this will help to generate more trade volume to justify, prioritize and attract new physical infrastructure investments ensuring future prosperity of our businesses and communities”.
The Soft-Infrastructure includes open source information technology that minimizes standardization requirements allowing integration of in house vertical systems in a non-intrusive manner. The most trust technology network in the world will deploy the Soft-Infrastructure. The resulting point to world integration will lead to a new era of dynamic real time data visibility delivering new system features not previously available, all at no cost to the end user. The deployment will be led by a public/private partnership demonstrating the benefits of increased trade efficiency and security through 4 initial trade lanes in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Middle East /Africa over an 18 month period with global coverage in 30 months.
Mr. Bala Irulandy, Business Unit Head of HCL Technologies’ Transportation and Logistics Group, said that HCL is excited to participate in what he believes is a “game-changer for global trade.” He sees GCEL’s highly innovative global trading platform yielding huge gains in productivity for Indian businesses, and also providing the means to dramatically reduce the nation’s carbon footprint by making transport far more efficient. HCL is a GCEL member. Executives from Tata Consultancy Services, another GCEL member, also attended the event with other technology firms from India.
“GCEL gives India powerful new tools to make our businesses more profitable and improve efficiency while connecting them with growth markets around the world,” Dr. Sarita added.
Dr. Mark Drabenstott, GCEL Secretary General and Co-Chair of the OECD Territorial Development Policy Committee, emphasized that GCEL held its event in Mumbai because “we are committed to providing equal opportunity for all capable financial, insurance and technology firms to be part of this initiative. We are presenting this opportunity here in Asia today just as we have in Jakarta and in other parts of the world.”
As part of GCEL’s commitment to equal opportunity, similar Awareness Events are planned to be held in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Lebanon, Tunisia, Brazil, Italy and the United States. In each case, the goal is to present the global benefits of GCEL to the public and the opportunity for their top banking, insurance, and technology organizations to benefit greatly by being part of this initiative.
Dr. Drabenstott stated that a trusted network of leading finance, insurance and technology firms would deliver the benefits from the HumaWealth Program. These firms will be selected from all four regions of the world through a transparent, equal opportunity process to be presented this fall at GCEL’s HumaWealth Genesis event planned to be held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. “Assembling this global network of trusted world-class companies, all working together, will drive global adoption thereby achieving a 21st century era of efficiency. We are pleased that leading companies from all over the world have committed to participate in Geneva.”
The GCEL’s HumaWealth Program will assist in re-energizing the global economy through a 30% reduction in the cost of trade, leading to global savings of nearly $700 billion annually, with $194 billion for Asia alone.
Mr. K.V. Mahidhar, head of CII’s Institute of Logistics, said “GCEL’s excellent global initiative will provide a push to India’s goal of moving into the top ten globally in logistics efficiency.” He stressed the value of GCEL’s focus on Soft-Infrastructure, noting that this would be a huge help in prioritizing the right investments in new physical infrastructure in India. Mr. Mahidhar also indicated that CII will support GCEL towards India’s participation in an Asian deployment project, one of four that GCEL will trigger around the world in coming months.
Last year, GCEL’s initiative was highly received at the Union of Arab Bank’s (UAB) Annual Meeting in Dubai. The UAB’s members include more than 300 Arab financial and banking institutions representing the major Arab banks. The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) also co-convened a HumaWealth Awareness Event in April this year in Jakarta with Indonesia’s Central Bank Deputy governor offering the keynote address. This event followed an MOU signed between KADIN and GCEL for the deployment of an Asia region Benchmark Trade Lane from Indonesia.
About CII
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) works to create and sustain an environment conducive to the growth of industry in India, partnering industry and government alike through advisory and consultative processes.
CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry led and industry managed organization, playing a proactive role in India’s development process. Founded over 115 years ago, it is India’s premier business association, with a direct membership of over 8100 organizations from the private as well as public sectors, including SMEs and MNCs, and an indirect membership of over 90,000 companies from around 400 national and regional sectoral associations.
CII catalyses change by working closely with government on policy issues, enhancing efficiency, competitiveness and expanding business opportunities for industry through a range of specialized services and global linkages. It also provides a platform for sectoral consensus building and networking. Major emphasis is laid on projecting a positive image of business, assisting industry to identify and execute corporate citizenship programmes. Partnerships with over 120 NGOs across the country carry forward its initiatives in integrated and inclusive development, which include health, education, livelihood, diversity management, skill development and environment, to name a few.
With 64 offices in India, 9 overseas in Australia, Austria, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, UK, and USA, and institutional partnerships with 223 counterpart organizations in 90 countries, CII serves as a reference point for Indian industry and the international business community.
About GCEL
The Global Coalition for Efficient Logistics (GCEL) is a Swiss-based non-profit public/private partnership that brings together governments and the private sector to deliver a tangible program achieving sustainable global economic growth. GCEL’s public sector members and supporters include governments from the Americas, Asia, Europe and Middle East/Africa and also private sector members including finance, technology and insurance firms with a manpower of 2.7 million operating in 130 countries.
The GCEL “HumaWealth” program consists of “Soft-Infrastructure” with three key elements: an open-source technology platform, a global network of trusted companies, and a deployment program that provides the tools, free of cost to the end users, to decrease the cost of the trade thereby promoting overall trade growth.
More information on GCEL can be found at www.gcel.net or contact: [email protected]
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