Chinese skills to help SMEs

Small and medium enterprises (SME) can access low-cost pollution control techinology from China under the initiative launched by the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BNCCI).

The chamber will work to build up environmental enterprises in line with Chinese practices, said S N Nundy, president of BNCCI, after a visit to China.

BNCCI has initiated discussion with South China Institute of Environmental Sciences (Sepa) to help SMEs comply with increasingly-stringent pollution norms.

BNCCI in association with the West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) intends to set up a similar institute where science degree and diploma holders would be trained to handle pollution issues.

BNCCI has signed an memorandum of understanding with SEPA for a training school in Kolkata.

Kaiming Li, vice-president of Sepa, will be visiting Kolkata in June 2005.

Training, at least initially, may be done both in Kolkata and China.

The BNCCI team also visited the Canton fair and met businesses in Shenzhen and Chenzhou.

Chinese plastics, chemicals and ceramics units valued Indian marketing skills and fluency in English, claimed Nundy.

"Sepa can train environmental enterprises to address pollution issues at reasonable cost," said Nundy.

WBPCB will help polluting units using personnel trained by SEPA, he added.