International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) has signed an agreement with Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Exposition (CCPIT Chengdu), MeetingsChina and Chengdu University on a joint research cooperation project and officially launched the Centre of International Meetings Research and Training (CIMERT) supported by ICCA.

This multi-party deal brings four organisations ranging from government, association, media and educational institution for an integrated project delivery. It covers a five-year period until 2023 and commits all four organisations to work together to promote joint research initiatives in the areas of capacity building, personnel industry development programme, knowledge dissemination, data collection as well as market analysis.

“Human capital development.”

The signing of this new cooperation agreement marks ICCA’s first partnership on launching a research centre for enhancing mutual cooperation on capacity building and human capital development in the meetings industry and resource integration of international conferences in the Asia-Pacific region.

Senthil Gopinath, CEO of ICCA said: “The establishment of CIMERT covers scope to introduce joint research initiatives which recognise our deep shared interests and values. We have seen that major cities in China have made impressive strides forward in the meetings space and ICCA views this partnership with Chengdu as a win-win collaboration.”