Gloom and Doom is an Opportunity – Dipen Rughani

Australia India Business Council (AIBC) is Australia’s premier organisation representing trade between India and Australia. AIBC NSW Chapter contributes over 45% of members and resources to the national chapter and works closely with NSW State and Federal Government agencies. Dipen Rughani is the President of AIBC NSW Chapter and dreams of taking AIBC NSW to moon, literally, and is working at a scorching pace to achieve this.

Rohit Revo catches up with Dipen Rughani over an interesting conversation.

As the newly appointed President of AIBC NSW the first step you took was to re-launch AIBC NSW. Why does an organisation like AIBC NSW need to be relaunched?

We did not re-launch AIBC as such. We relaunched the Industry chapters. Over the past 6 months since I have been at the helm as President of AIBC NSW and felt we needed to improve our communication with the State and Federal agencies as well as identifying ways of improving trade between India and Australia. I saw there were a number of people within AIBC who had specific experience within specific industries and I felt the best way to increase trade was to introduce some new chapters and relaunch some old chapters where trade was expected to grow. We introduced 11 to 13 industry chapters for AIBC NSW. We also formalised some of our procedures and policies. We now have a strategy document and a governance document in place which has been adopted by other states.

With the formation of Industry chapters by when do you expect to see visible results?

I anticipate the full strategy written for the AIBC NSW will take 18-24 months to be fully up and running in all chapters.
But the kind of results we are looking for are already apparent. For example in education, this chapter has released a report in light of the recent Indian student attacks. And the caliber of people contributing to the education chapter is also exciting such as the CEO of TAFE and eminent professors from the Australian education sector. Also in Mining and Resource we have a delegation from India arriving in September this year. Almost every month these chapters meet and their heads report back to the management committee. Each chapter has written a mission statement about their means and outcomes.

Do you think your re-launch and the work of the AIBC has been undermined in any way by the recent violent attacks of Indian students?

First my personal point of view. I experienced this in the UK where I grew up and I never felt it was racist. I believe it is more of a cultural interaction issue. The Australian intake of Indian students has doubled year on year and they congregate in particular concentrated areas. I am talking of Sydney here as I am not familiar with Melbourne. First and foremost my message is it is not a racist issue. I don’t think Indian students are receiving a proper induction into Australian society and Australian culture early on in their stay. In fact we should look at encouraging their cultural education before they leave India. What also has been highlighted are issues of security, police enforcement at hotspots, issue of CCTV and induction period at universities. If Indian students were to learn more about the culture of Australia they would have an easier time integrating into Australian society.

There are other issues with non-tertiary educational institutions that provide courses such as hospitality and hair dressing. We are aware that many Indian students are not so interested in the short course but rather they are a means to getting their PR. There is also a concern that these institutions and education agencies don’t offer much in terms of value, nor do they offer much in the way of support for acclimatising to Aussie culture. Imagine Australian students going to India and being left to their own devices?

Many lessons can be learned by this situation. At the top most level of Government both Prime Ministers are talking to each other, education ministers are talking, education delegations are visiting each other too. We need to make sure we focus on positive outcomes.

Give us a peak of what we can expect at the AIBC National Address planned for 10th August. You are claiming this will be the biggest event in the AIBC’s 23 year history.

Traditionally every year AIBC NSW and every state chapter holds an annual Australia Indian annual address. This address is held in August and we normally have senior ministers attend and our aim is to invite the PM Kevin Rudd to attend. We are waiting for his response. We have also invited via Indian High Commisioner and Consul General, the Indian PM to address us through a video recorded message. We are having Australian cricketers – Nathan Braken one day cricketer of the year, we have also invited Steve Waugh and Adam Gilchrist. Next year Commonwealth games are going to be held in India and we are working closely with the Australian Commonwealth Committee. We plan to hold a fund raiser for Australian athletes to go to India and the Commonwealth Committee has provided us 8-10 lead athletes to attend.

We also have the incoming Australian High Commisoner to India Peter Varghese attending. We have the Indian High commissioner Sujatha Singh, the Indian Consul General of India in Sydney and Adelaide Amit Dasgupta. We feel the current heightened dialogue between India and Australia will make this the biggest event. We are working with many companies who are interested in entering India. Even with the global financial crisis, India is growing so it is seen as a very good opportunity for these companies to go to India and invest. We are taking advantage of this. We normally have 400 to 500 senior business people, government agencies, stakeholders attend this event in the past and we are looking to take this to 600 to 650 this year. This year’s event is being held on 10th August at the Hilton Hotel.

What are you doing to raise and improve the profile of India in Australia and Australia in India?

One of our biggest sponsors is an organisation called Invest in Australia which has recently been set up by few business people and their first task is to hold an expo in India in October and they already have commitment from 15-20 exhibitors. We have commitment from several federal ministers to present to the delegation and 8-10 media outlets will be there to provide exposure. AIBC NSW is putting all its weight behind this event and AIBC NSW are planning to take a delegation of Education and Real Estate chapters. We are also in touch with Austrade and Dept of State and Regional Development to see if they can join us.

The membership of AIBC has become stagnant in recent years. What steps are you taking to address this?

Before I took over AIBC, National changed their secretariat. Unfortunately the secretariat was not doing a good job and this in part contributed to our membership dropping backwards nationally. I came on board in January and the secretariat was changed in December. The new secretariat is doing a good job. This year it has remained stable but we expect it to grow in the coming 12 months. Each chapter in NSW is responsible for generating 10 new members from their individual areas for every year.

In the doom and gloom economic environment, how difficult or easy is it for you to facilitate business investment between the two countries?

I think the reason why I have gone very head strong into AIBC is that phenomenal opportunities exist for Australian businesses to invest in India at every level. I don’t see the GFC as doom and gloom. I see this as an opportunity and as such I am putting a lot of energy and passion behind AIBC and its chapters and the Annual Address to try and to get India further up in the minds of companies who are conservative about India and looking at India as investment opportunities. China and India are growing in this crisis. If you look at India the legal system is Westminister, business language is English, and we share a love of cricket and curry. There are a lot of comfortable grounds to work on to take Australian companies and culture to India. Trade between India and Australia is approx $15 billion and it is 10 to 1 in favour of Australia. We are looking at why this is happening and where we can improve trade from India to Australia as well.

NSW is working closely with DSRD to open an office in Mumbai. As soon as NSW has an office in India which is the last state to open up an office, we will further improve our dialogue. We are looking at utilising the man power which Austrade has in India to communicate with industry chapters and share knowledge and research via video link. We have experts in policy and we are looking at 457 visa. We are looking at ways and means that we can impart education to Indian ICT companies which want empanelment into state government tenders and how they can do this. So watch the space. I don’t think it is gloom and doom it is an opportunity.

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