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Competition
spotlights chamber innovation
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| The
finals of the 2005 World Chambers Competition will be held in Durban,
South Africa |
Paris,
13 October 2004
- Organizers of the 2005 World Chambers Competition
are preparing themselves
for a deluge of competition entries from all over the world, having already
received their first submission - six months ahead of the competition
deadline.
The Nigerian Port
Harbour Chamber of Commerce has entered its "Trade Information and
Education" project as a candidate in the "Best small business
project category". Set up to provide information and training to
local entrepreneurs on how to discover business opportunities and create
new companies, the chamber hopes the project may win it a spot in the
competition finals, to be held at the 4th World Chambers Congress in Durban
next year.
The World Chambers
Competition was established in 2003 to recognize chamber ingenuity and
to highlight the most innovative chamber projects around the world. The
awards were presented during the 3rd World Chambers Congress in Quebec
last year.
The inaugural event
proved such a hit, attracting 65 entries from over 29 countries, that
organizers made it a permanent feature of the World Chambers Federation
(WCF) Congress. They hope that new categories for "Best chambers
management and financing project" and "Best IT project"
will encourage even more chambers to enter the 2005 competition.
According to WCF Chair
Avijit Mazumdar, the World Chambers Competition provides an ideal opportunity
for chambers to showcase their projects and share their ideas and experiences.
He said: "The
2003 competition received an amazing response from chambers from all corners
of the globe and we anticipate an even greater number of entrants in 2005."
At last year's World
Chambers Congress the four sessions dedicated to the competition finals
proved to be one of the most popular and exciting features of the programme.
Chair of the Jury, Adnan Kassar, explained why: "Few things are more
interesting to chambers than learning about the activities of their colleagues
around the world. Add an element of competition, and the interest only
increases."
A year after being
presented with the award for "Best small business project",
Mustak Caglar spoke of one of the benefits winning brought his chamber,
the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce: "Receiving this award generated
so much positive publicity for our 'Matchmaking for Global Sourcing' project
that we have started to work with 11 other chambers to expand the project
across Turkey."
The Indian Chamber
of Commerce, winner of last year's "Best unconventional project"
award for its environment management centre, received government recognition
for its achievement. It believes that taking honours in the World Chambers
Competition contributed to it being awarded an EU contract. In addition,
the chamber has noticed increased motivation and determination to excel
among its staff members since winning the award.
Another winner to
receive commendation from its government was the Fribourg Chamber of Commerce,
Industry and Services in Switzerland. Its Swiss Centre in Shanghai was
opened by
Swiss President Pascal Couchepin just two months after the project
had won it the "Best international project" award.
True to the chamber
ethos, certain participants in last year's event have decided to take
the competition's winning formula and offer it to their local audience.
Both the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce
have organized competitions to give their memberships an opportunity to
showcase their activities and learn about innovative projects elsewhere.
For Nancy Hughes Anthony, President & CEO of the Canadian Chamber
of Commerce, a judge in last year's competition and co-host of the 3rd
World Chambers Congress, "The World Chambers Competition was such
an inspiration that as part of our AGM this year we decided to set up
our own nationwide competition for chamber members in Canada."
The deadline for the
2005 World Chambers Competition is 4 March 2005.
For further information
visit http://www.worldchamberscompetition.org.
World
Chambers Federation
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