Greetings from British Business Group Pune. It is indeed a pleasure to connect with you all through this Annual Report for the financial year 2017-18.


The year for BBG started on an inspiring note, because our BBG Pune Chapter has forged a new dimension with the British Trade Office and the Department of International Trade (DIT), Pune for getting our members invited to various important activities of the British Trade Office on behalf of the British Deputy High Commission in Mumbai. We have had important events like the Round Table on Making Make in India Happen in April 2017, followed by the Discussion –Presentation on Exponential Business Opportunities in London-Great Britain, which was followed with Networking Dinner in November 2017. Again, the Chemicals Mission with the Advance Engineering and Manufacturing Skills Programme in February 2018 was another opportunity for our members to capitalize upon. Our thanks to the BTO to facilitate this for our members. The only point is that we could have had a larger participation in these events.
During this year we have had interesting events involving Talks by senior Diplomats from the Foreign Service and a former Ambassador, on India's Foreign Policy and its impact on Trade and Business. The GST and the new Taxation implications were again adequately highlighted by Grant Thornton our members, which was informative and indicated the Taxation impact on businesses.
We have also had some very interesting Speakers who gave us their Success Stories, in the form of The India Growth Story –The Perspective of a Returning Immigrant to India, and the way he scaled the business to a greater scale and magnitude, and the other one touched on the Informal Sector in business, and then another Event which focused on the Dynamic Journey of a Renaissance Man –Poet to a Multicultural Leader.
In August 2017, we the Pune BBG Chapter played hosts to all BBG Leaders and conducted the Pan India BBG Leaders' Summit in Pune. It was a very well attended Event and we initially had the Leaders' Summit attended by about 14 participants across six BBG Chapters Pan India. This was followed by the BBG Pune Chapter Monthly Event at the Poona Club, and well attended by our members, guests and our Pan India BBG Leaders. Some of the BBG Leaders also participated in a Panel Discussion, moderated by our Keynote Speaker Mr Ajay Mehta, a leading distinguished industrialist. The Topic was the "Current Future", which led to a very interesting and well participated discussion.
In retrospect I feel the BBG Pune Chapter has had a series of interesting and quality events for our members and guests.