Gujarat Govt, AMA to set up centre for international trade

The Government of Gujarat (GoG) on Wednesday opened a unique international trade centre in Ahmedabad, in collaboration with the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA), to boost the export from Gujarat and bring in more interest in trade and commercial activities.

AMA, an organisation patronised by the major Gujarat-based corporates, works in various segments of management.

The centre, which was inaugurated by chief minister, Narendra Modi, will be used as a platform to impart education in international trade.

The centre is proposed to carry out training and research activities. The international trade centre will also be used as an institution for the development of human resources, in which the state lags behind.

The centre, christened 'GoG-AMA Centre for International Trade', will be governed under the Department of Trade and Commerce of the state government, said a government official.

A five-member group will head the centre. Two of them will be state government representatives and two will represent the AMA. The fifth member will be an expert from management studies.

Initial corpus of the Centre will be around Rs 50 lakh. It is proposed that the return from the corpus will used to run the centre.

The entire initial corpus has been created by the state government.

"The centre's main objectives will include the generation of right kind of manpower. The centre will be a platform to issues on international trade and the implication of WTO on the international trade," said Anil Mukim, principal secretary to the chief minister.

"We will conduct a series of area specific and commodity specific seminars for the players in the trade and the industry. In the next two months, the International trade centre will conduct 20 seminars across the state," Mukim added.

According to Mukim, who is also the Commissioner of Trade and Commerce Department of the state government, the centre will be partonising research studies on various important industries like gems and jewelleries, chemicals, textiles and plastic.

"We will also fund research studies by students from various organisations in the state. The idea will not only be confined to major cities like Ahmedabad or Vadodara but will also be taken to various other cities and towns in Gujarat," he said.

"The centre will have a full-fledged library with large number of trade development related books and periodicals. We will also keep good research papers, especially those on WTO and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) related issues," Mukim told Business Standard on Wednesday.

The state government has also proposed to set up an international convention centre on the outskirts of Ahmedabad and the international convention centre might be brought under the umbrella of the GoG-AMA international centre.

The new international centre will also introduce several courses, mainly short-term courses, for teachers of various commerce colleges across the state.

The syllabus of the short-term courses will be mainly drafted with the WTO issues and its implications at its core.