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

30 Sep 2016 News
Demystifying Hydrogeology at the 43rd IAH Congress, in Montpellier, France

Water is a primary life-giving resource, and its availability is an essential component in socioeconomic development and poverty reduction .The ...

Building air quality monitoring skills within the HKH to ensure reliable data generation

ICIMOD’s Atmosphere Initiative together with government counterparts (the Department of Environment in Nepal and the National Environment Commission in Bhutan) ...

22 Nov 2018 Cryosphere
Preliminary Findings Suggest Debris Cover Does Not Accelerate Glacier Melt

The finding is an outcome of a joint field expedition carried out through September–October 2018 by researchers from the International ...

Lessons Learnt from Training on Mapping and Monitoring Glaciers using RS and GIS at ICIMOD

The participants came from the National Center for Hydrology and Meteorology (NCHM), Bhutan; Karakoram International University (KIU), Pakistan; the Department ...

14 Jun 2016 News
World Environment Day 2016

The WED 2016 campaign aims to raise awareness of the far-reaching nature of wildlife crime. The slogan for this year’s ...

South–South business partnerships towards energy-efficient and low-emission brick production in Pakistan

Business-to-business and government-level efforts between All Pakistan Brick Kiln Owners’ Association (APBKOA) and the Federation of Nepal Brick Industries (FNBI) ...

13 Nov 2018 CryoHub
ICIMOD’s partners in Nepal hail successful cryosphere research collaboration

In collaboration with the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS), Tribhuvan University (TU), ...

6 Feb 2015 News
Workshop on Glaciological Applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

A total of 50 participants from 15 institutions participated in the workshop, which focused on the scientific/natural hazard applications of ...