Guatam Sen
The World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF) 2013 at Bangkok on August 10th and 11th 2013 is the culmination of endeavor to operationalise the organisation after its creation in July 2012 at Hong Kong. The WHEF Bangkok forum will underline the achievement in establishing the WHEF through wide ranging discussions of issues of interest to its members and the reiteration of its vision. The Bangkok forum is to be attended by nearly 400 hundred delegates from around the world and will be addressed by distinguished business personalities, academics and public figures.
The goal of the World Hindu Economic Forum is to promote worldwide business activity and promote Hindu enterprises and entrepreneurship to increase economic prosperity. The key purpose of the WHEF is to encourage networking and mentoring between Hindu businesses, the known foundation for expansion and profitability. WHEF is a platform for Hindu businesses to cooperate and collaborate globally so that market access is facilitated amongst them. It will also provide a range of services to its members and such as coordinated efforts to enhance credit availability, legal, ancillary services and business intelligence.
The Hindu Business Network portal of the WHEF is being developed rapidly and will shortly become the interface between WHEF members to advertise their business activities, plan identify potential partners for activities across the world. The WHEF will act as an intermediary to help this process and assist it with the services that the WHEF will provide to members, usually at cost, as a non profit-making organisation.
The WHEF is intended for all Hindu business organisations, but its portal and allied services will have particular appeal for small and medium enterprise (SMEs). They can especially benefit from services provided by the WHEF because sustaining them in-house is costly and inefficient for SMEs. But a third party like the WHEF collating information crucial for networking and services of use to SMEs can create benefits simultaneously for many SMEs at low cost.
In terms of numbers, SMEs dominate the world business stage and more than 95% of enterprises across the world are SMEs. These account for account for around 60% of employment by the private sector in Japan, which also has the highest proportion of SMEs among industrialised countries, which number more than 99% of all enterprises. Bharat has more than 13 million SMEs, which amount to 80% of all the country’s businesses. Estimated data for the 27 countries in the European Union also emphasize the importance of SMEs, which account for 99.8% of all enterprises, employ 67% of all workers and contribute 58% of gross value added (GVA)
SMEs are also major contributors to innovation in economies, partly through collaboration with the larger corporate sector. SMEs that become embedded in the supply chains of larger businesses are often motivated to improve their own human and technological capital. SMEs also account for 52% of private sector value added, which provides a reasonable estimate for the sector’s global economic contribution. The role of SMEs in business activity is assured and opportunities exist for creating networks and providing services to them that will help them prosper and grow.
The WHEF functions with the help of a distinguished committee of successful business person who comprise its Steering Committee, a CEO, additional staff and consultants. The main office is in New Delhi, Bharat. There will also be regional centre in Southeast Asia, the US, Caribbean, Europe, Africa that will provide WHEF members direct opportunity for interaction.
This article was originally published in WHEF 2013 Bangkok Conference Directory.