The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) is organising ‘Pune Unplugged- welcome week for expatriates’ from November 16-22. The seven-day event is an effort to assimilate more than 1,600 expatriates in Pune from countries like Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, America, Finland, Holland, Britain, Korea, Japan and so on.

Mukesh Malhotra, president, MCCIA, said the event is an initiative by MCCIA to make Pune an expatriate-friendly city. “MCCIA through its various business initiatives has successfully promoted and attracted foreign investments in the city. With the growing number of multinational companies and sizeable number of companies appointing expatriates to run their operations, an event like this will help them blend and integrate themselves into the social and cultural fabric of the city,” he said.

The event will also provide an insight into Indian classical music, dance, cuisine, culture, tourism and yoga. To build a better connect between Indian and expatriate corporates, various fun filled activities like a football match, craft bazaar, jazz evening and wine tasting will also be organised. Each day's event will be flagged off by Counsel Generals of various countries, a press release said.

Organisations like Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, British Business Group, WIN, Alliance Francaise, Max Mueller Bhavan and Everything for Expats will also be actively involved in the event. Multinationals like Volkswagen, Taco Faurecia, Cummins and local corporate entities Panchsheel Group, Magarpatta, Kirloskars, State Bank of India and Accurate Engineering are co-sponsors , said the release.