Back to news
12 Sep 2017 | News

Strengthening Ties with the Private Sector in Bhutan

Delegates from the Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), a private sector body comprising of members from the Bhutanese business community, visited the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) headquarters in Kathmandu on 30 August 2017.

The visit was the first BCCI exposure trip organized outside Bhutan. It followed the June 2017 signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between BCCI and ICIMOD. The MoU was a commitment to strengthening private sector engagement in Bhutan through collaborative action in relation to ongoing BCCI and ICIMOD activities.

1 min Read

70% Complete
BCCI representatives at ICIMOD Photo Credit: Utsav Maden/ICIMOD

ICIMOD is committed to collaborating with private sector bodies in the Hindu Kush Himalaya to ensure sustainable development in the region. The delegation of more than 40 Bhutanese dzongkhag (district) representatives was headed by BCCI Secretary General Phub Tshering.

Basanta Shrestha, Director Strategic Cooperation, ICIMOD, welcomed the delegates. In his remarks, Shrestha stressed on the importance of fostering close collaborations with various businesses in Bhutan to upscale and improve the livelihoods of mountain people. BCCI Secretary General Tshering said that the BCCI and ICIMOD can work together to strengthen sustainable business opportunities and improve livelihoods in Bhutan. He said, “BCCI is confident that ICIMOD is the perfect partner for us. It will help us gain technical knowledge on value chains and market linkages, capacity building for mountain communities, and enterprise development for agro-based small- and medium-scale enterprises.”

Tshering emphasized that the partnership with ICIMOD would help Bhutan create business leaders who are agents for change in the future. Following the remarks, BCCI delegates had an insightful interaction session with ICIMOD colleagues working with various initiatives where they learned about the various ICIMOD activities in Bhutan. The session provided the delegates an opportunity to understand and explore the areas for future collaboration with ICIMOD.


Phub Tshering, Secretary General of BCCI, speaking to BCCI and ICIMOD representatives
Photo Credit: Utsav Maden/ICIMOD

As part of their business exposure visit, the BCCI delegates also visited the ICIMOD Knowledge Park in Godavari to learn about innovative technologies, mountain farming, and other practices that useful for sustainable development.

Stay current

Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.

Sign Up

Related content

Continue exploring this topic

10 Dec 2015 News
HICAP South-South Dialogue on Managing Wetlands in the Himalayas

ICIMOD, as a regional intergovernmental learning and knowledge sharing centre in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, has taken various steps ...

18 Jul 2019 News
Combining top–down and bottom–up: Designing a watershed management plan for Dhankuta Municipality

In the first consultation meeting with the vice mayor, there was a consensus that the conservation of water sources is ...

26 Feb 2016 KSL
Sustainable Management of Local Varieties in Kailash

A local crop diversity fair in Khar VDC of Api-Nampa Conservation area of Kailash landscape of Nepal was organised at ...

24 Feb 2016 News
Rewarding Conserving Dhankuta Upstream Communities

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Dhankuta municipality have combined to manage upstream water sources and possible ...

Incubation centre established for R&D of the brick sector in Nepal

The incubation centre will strengthen FNBI’s Technical Resource Development Committee (TRDC), and enable R&D for the continuous refinement of brick ...

Policy Level Interventions to Improve Brick Industry in Nepal

The purpose of the workshop was to present a compiled report and to seek input from concerned institutions to further ...

22 May 2019 Livelihoods
Regional cooperation for tourism development: High-level dialogue on promoting India–Nepal cross-border tourism, trade, and industry

Cross-border tourism and regional cooperation are priority areas of the KLCDI – part of its overarching goal to further landscape-level ...

14 Dec 2015 News
REDD+ updates

  ICIMOD’s REDD+ Initiative organized a Regional Learning Workshop on ‘Demystifying REDD+ Safeguards for South Asia’ from 2–6 November 2015 in Kolkata, India. ...