Scott Wang inaugurates WTC Shamshabad interim office

Hyderabad: Scott Wang, vice-president (Asia Pacific), World Trade Centres Association (WTCA), on Thursday inaugurated the interim office of the World Trade Centre (WTC) Shamshabad at Kapil Kavuri Hub, in upscale financial district, Nanakramguda.

World Trade Centre-Shamshabad is a WTCA member based out of New York. It is an umbrella organisation for all the World Trade Centres present across over 320 cities in over 92 countries. The philosophy on which WTCA works is 'Connect Globally. Prosper Locally'. The member network of the WTCs will help the local MSMEs in the region to export to overseas markets and helps in the economic development of the region.

Speaking on occasion, Wang, who flew down from New York for the event, said: "We are very fortunate to have Kapil Group as a partner for this region. They came with a vision to support the local industry and regional economic development. Since yesterday, we have had a lot of discussions on how to make this happen and how to leverage the WTCA network. We have a lot of expectations from WTC-Shamshabad and WTC Vizag to connect the business community in this region to our resources in the global network".

Given the growth of the IT sector, there will be demand for high quality office facilities in Telangana and elsewhere in India, he added.

On the Indian market, he said it is going to be one of WTCA's priority markets. "We are quite optimistic about India. This year, India's economic growth rate is going to be the best. The number I got is around 8 percent GDP growth. (economic) recovery is happening. We have done some internal research, and the number we got about India is very encouraging. By 2027, India is going to be the world's fifth largest economy in US dollar terms," he said, adding that there would be a tremendous improvement in India's infrastructure in the next 10 years.

From the interim office, WTC-Shamshabad will facilitate the local industry to connect with the international buyers and arrange B2B meets as part of its trade services, which was also launched during the inauguration of the Interim Office. As part of the trade services, WTC-Shamshabad has partnered with WTC-Mumbai and hosting the 2022 Connect India International Tade Show, a virtual exhibition from August 1 to November 30, 2022, as part of the trade promotion of WTCAs Market Access Programme. Over 100 exhibitors from Telangana are participating in the exhibition.

During the inauguration, Scott released the first edition of Focus Magazine, a quarterly from WTC-Shamshabad covering exhaustively the MSME sector and an interview with head of BSE SME at BSE Ltd on the benefits of MSMEs listing on the SME platform and migrate to the main exchange.

On the side-lines of the WTC-Shamshabad Interim office inauguration, Scott had a meeting with Praveen PA, director, aerospace and defence, Department of Industries and Commerce. During the meeting, Scott expressed his interest in leading a trade delegation from Telangana to San Diageo & San Jose to facilitate transfer of technology to companies in Telangana in the aerospace and defence sector.

WTC-Shamshabad has also signed an MoU with We Hub, India's first State-led Incubator for women entrepreneurs promoted by Telangana.

Scott also had an interactive meeting with senior officials from the GMR Airport on how the WTCA network can be leveraged in cities where GMR has airports for trade services and logistics.

Y Varaprasad Reddy, chairman; Akhilesh Mahurkar, director; Srujana Chadalawada, associate director,WTC-Shamshabad and Visakhapatnam, were present during the inauguration along with the other team members.