"This is a positive development for World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce (WZCC)… Our members can now access members of the Goa Chamber of Commerce [and Industry (GCCI)] to facilitate potential business… This will also open the bridge for GCCI members who have requirements which our members can fulfil,” noted Xerxes Dastur, chairman of WZCC’s Bombay chapter and director on their international board, about the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between the two organizations on June 17, 2023.
"We are hoping to sign many such MOUs with other chambers of commerce so that WZCC can provide a safe and all-encompassing platform, where Zoroastrian entrepreneurs can work together to achieve greater heights,” he added, talking to Parsiana on June 26.
The memorandum will "promote trade, business, commerce, industry, entrepreneurship and professionalism between both the premier institutes to serve the business community and ... enhance the overall economic wellbeing of its members,” noted a WZCC press note dated June 26. "The combined services which include skills and experience will give an advantage to both the Chambers. Valuable information can be obtained free of cost, at the same time increase their business activities with the help of shared suggestions.”
Ralph de Souza, Capt Percy Master, Behroze Daruwalla, Arin Master (seated, 3rd to 6th from l); Xerxes Dastur,
Aspi Antia, Jamshed Mistry (standing, 3rd, 5th, 6th from l) with office bearers of Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry
All-India members of WZCC can access these contacts, stated Dastur. "WZCC Bombay is by far the largest chapter and would be the biggest beneficiary of all such MOUs. We are confident that this will be the first of many such MOUs which will open the doors to many contacts and be an amazing platform for our members,” added Dastur. The Bombay chapter has 480 members and "probably 300 more all India,” he said.
Present in Goa for the signing were, besides Dastur, global WZCC president Capt Percy Master; India region president, chairperson global Women Entrepreneurs Wing and global corporate secretary Behroze Daruwalla; Bombay chapter vice chairman Jamshed Mistry; WZCC chief executive officer Aspi Antia; Percy’s wife Arin.
GCCI was represented by their president Ralph de Souza, vice president Pratima Dhond; chairman of logistics and industry committees respectively Chandrakant Gawas and Goutam Raj; directors Devayu Chowgule, Pallavi Arondekar and Kiran Ballikar.
"We are going to move step by step with GCCI… First they will give us their contacts for various business activities they are engaged in… We will in turn give them details of our members who are interested in similar businesses. As a next step we will invite members of both Chambers to interact and discuss their businesses. This is a pilot project,” stated the WZCC press note.
GCCI’s history on their website notes that it owes its inspiration to the Assogiagao Comercial de Lisboa set up in 1854. "This prompted Goans also to have one…They decided to establish the Assogiagao Comercial da India Portuguesa.” The first managing committee was elected in December 1908. The early members were wholesale dealers, retailers, wood businesses, pharmacy owners, binding enterprises, cloth merchants, etc.
There being no jetty on the river Mandovi, "great difficulties were felt by the merchants who imported or exported goods or brought them from the other side of the river…The new committee requested the government to immediately start the construction of a new jetty for loading and unloading of cargo. It was at the Chamber’s initiative that a banking house was started under the name of Banco da India Portuguesa in 1914.” In 1916, the Chamber catalyzed the steamship service between Goa and Portugal to boost trade between the two countries. In 1954, when the union government imposed an economic blockade against Goa, the Chamber arranged for a Portuguese shipping company to touch Goa directly to minimize hardships to the local population. The Chamber’s bulletin Boletim da Assogiagao Comercial da India Portuguesa kept members informed of the overseas traders who wanted to import and export products to and from Goa.
With a mission to "energize the Zarathushti entrepreneural spirit to make (it) the economic engine for the prosperity and well-being of the community,” WZCC was incorporated in Illinois, USA in December 2000, by a core group of Zarathushtis under the leadership of Rohinton Rivetna, now global president emeritus. The Chamber was launched by industrialist Nadir Godrej at the Seventh World Zoroastrian Congress at Houston in 2000. "In the following year seven local chapters were established in USA, two in Canada and one each in Tehran and Middle East in 2002. In 2003 chapters were set up in India, UK, Australia followed by representative offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. The India Region now has three active chapters in Bombay, Poona and Bangalore,” states their website.