Over 2,500 delegates from 17 countries ? that?s how the three-day fICCI Frames 2008 took off. On one hand while Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, minister for information & broadcasting (I&B), gave this year?s Ficci meet a miss, Asha Swarup, secretary, union ministry of information and broadcast addressed a number of key issues at the inaugural session. Other dignitaries present at the occasion were Ficci Frames chairman Yash Chopra (chairman ? Yashraj Films) and the co-chairman Kunal Dasgupta (CEO- Multiscreen Media), Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP and president Ficci, Viviane Reding, European Commissioner, information society and media, European Commission; Stewart Beck, assistant deputy minister, investment innovation and sectors, foreign affairs and international trade, Canada; Dominique Dreyer, ambassador of Switzerland to India; Amit Khanna, chairman, Reliance Entertainment and chairman Ficci convergence committee and actor Sonam Kapoor. This year the partner country of Ficci Frames is Switzerland and Canada will be next year?s partner country.
To begin with Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, ?From a small dream today Ficci has become a big brand in itself. Today capital is no longer scarce to ideas. From small retailers to big international investors are looking at investing in the media sector.?
Yash Chopra said ?New technologies, ideas, young and brilliant filmmakers are here to take the industry forward. It?s a revolution, I would say that has happened in the industry today that we are making films all over the world, and it?s a challenge to enter more and more countries and expand our reach even farther in countries like Japan, China, Indonesia and others. We need to share our business with Pakistan too, and I urge the government to pass policies that would help the two countries join hands for that matter.?