During The Managing Committee Meeting of The Chamber on 20th January 2021, The President Mr. Deb A Mukherjee, introduced His Excellency Freddy Svane, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark to India,  and also Ambassador to Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal, who participated in the meeting virtually. This was his second tenure in India and this region, the first one being in 2010-2015. Among his various roles, he was CEO of Danish Agriculture Council (2008-2010). 

The President advised that The Bengal Chamber would like to set up an Urban Regeneration Lab for the City of Kolkata in association with The Danish Embassy towards sharing of best practices and learnings in civic infrastructure and development. Kolkata being a heritage city with a rich legacy, the Chamber needs to focus on its regeneration to ensure that the city grows and is a part of the global success story going forward. The Chamber would like to build this Lab keeping two fundamental principals in mind: 

(1) Sustainable Practices:-  Keeping in mind the Sustainable Development Goals as envisioned by the UN as part of the SDG-17 goals for 2030. Hence, The Chamber was also embarking on an exercise of building a vision - “Vision Bengal 2030”, and 

(2) Resilient Ecosystem:- Through the Living Urban Lab that was being proposed to be created along with the Danish Embassy; The Chamber wished to build a strong and resilient urban eco-system. 

The President thereafter invited His Excellency, Freddy Svane, Ambassador of Denmark to India, to address the Members present. 

The following are the highlights of His Excellency Freddy Svane’s address: 

Having spent his first tenure in India he has been familiar with Kolkata and Bengal. Kolkata was not just a city but a gateway to the North East; with the Bay of Bengal being the other gateway to explore opportunities in South East Asia. 

Currently the Danish Embassy was working in Udaipur and Goa in the context of aiding the”Urban Living Lab”. 

Towards sustainable growth and development of a future oriented city and civic amenities and infrastructure facilities, Denmark can offer and help immensely for which he was interested to meet in person to discuss in detail and take the proposed collaboration further. He was interested to look into what was being planned for “Vision Bengal 2030” for Kolkata and for Bengal and was ready to extend whatever help required. He felt that perhaps a common project could also be developed with KPIs set up to take this collaboration further. 

Sustainable goals now need to be taken on at  the ground level and worked upon and he would be interested in looking at the various solutions available in hand as he believed that there are plenty of opportunities to be explored. 

The Session concluded with Mr. Subir Chakraborty, Senior Vice President, extending a formal Vote of Thanks to His Excellency.