The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in collaboration with Indo-German Chamber of Commerce launched The Bengal Chamber Centre of Excellence for MSMEs on 19th December, 2018 at The Bengal Chamber Premises. Shri Alapan Bandyopadhyay, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of MSME & Textiles and Industry, Commerce & Enterprises, Government of West Bengal inaugurated the web portal of the Centre of Excellence.

The objective of the "Centre of Excellence (CoE}" is helping MSME fraternity and providing various services for them. Services from Centre of Excellence for MSMEs will be offered through our special portal, which will provide services like:
→ Up-scaling MSMEs through Senior Expert Services from Germany.
→ Skills Training Programmes by Indian Experts.
→ Technology tie-ups and collaboration (with Indian and Overseas companies}.
→ Identifying export opportunities for the MSMEs.
→ Business advisory services like market research, defining strategy and operations, finance and GST consulting.
→ Knowledge Exchange Sessions.

The inaugural session commenced with the addresses by Mr. Indrajit Sen, President, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Mr. Subhodip Ghosh, Director General, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Mr. Indrajit Sen spoke about this special initiative in bridging MSMEs, Government Departments and larger organization. His address included how this Centre of Excellence would be creating knowledge dissemination, business advisory services and skill development framework for MSMEs. Mr. Nari Kalwani, Chairman - Eastern Region spoke about international cooperation and how IGCC would help MSMEs for any German Collaboration and Technology Tie-ups.

The inauguration programme also featured a panel discussion on "Strategic Integration of Indian MSMEs". Mr. S. Radhakrishnan, President, The Bengal Chamber Commerce & Industry moderated the session. The panelists included Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, Former Air Chief Marshal, PVSM, AVSM, VM, ADC, Prof. Siddhartha Das, Professor - Metallurgical & Materials Engineering - Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur & Senior Member - Manufacturing & MSME Committee, The Bengal Chamber, Commodore Ratnakar Ghosh, IN {Retd}, Former Director {Shipbuilding} - Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd.

The inauguration programme was attended by more than 100 MSMEs from different clusters of West Bengal.