"We have a plan to transform our business institute into a university for professionals within next five to ten years," said DCCI President Hossain Khaled at a press conference in the capital yesterday.

The press conference was organised to officially announce the chamber's achievement from the 5th World Chambers Congress held at Istanbul in Turkey from July 4 to 6. World Chambers Federation (WCF), ICC's specialised division for chamber affairs, organised the congress.

The DCCI president said the business institute, which started its journey in 1991 as a training institute and was upgraded in 1999, has so far organised 466 training programmes and trained almost 12,000 people including business executives and entrepreneurs.

The objectives of the business institute are to develop entrepreneurial skill, generate self-employment, graduate small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to large-scale business houses, provide advisory and consultancy services for enterprises and help alleviate poverty to achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs), Khaled said.

Talking about the award, he said the DCCI has won 'World Chambers Competition Award 2007' in the category of 'Best Skills Development Programme'.

"In the competition four finalists from 55 countries vied for the award and finally we won the award," said Khaled, who received the prize on behalf of the chamber from Chairman of International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Marcus Wallenber at a function in Istanbul on July 6.

Khaled said the DCCI highlighted various activities of the chamber's business institute in the contest, putting emphasis on the need for skill development and training particularly for SMEs.

In the competition the DCCI also presented a case study on 'International Purchasing and Support Chain Management', which provided the latest technique for 'buying into competitiveness'.

The other categories in the contest were Best Unconventional Project for SMEs, Best International Cooperation between Chambers, and Best New Membership Recruitment Project.

Mahbubur Rahman, president of Bangladesh chapter of ICC, led the 14-member delegation to the world chamber congress.