The International Cotton Association (ICA) has elected Mirza Salman Ispahani from Bangladesh as its President for 2017-18, making him the first from the country to head the body.
According to an ICA press statement, the Chairman of Pahartali Textile and Hosiery Mills (a concern of Chittagong-based business conglomerate MM Ispahani Ltd.), was elected after an election, held in Singapore on October 13.
Ispahani received the presidential medial from the associations’ immediate past President Jürg Reinhart at the gala ICA annual trade event held in Singapore following the election.
“I am very humbled and honoured to have been entrusted with this huge responsibility. It perhaps means even more to me as I come in as a spinner, from Bangladesh, to what many spinners have always called a ‘Merchants Club’,” Ispahani said.
The ICA is the world’s leading international cotton trade association and arbitral body which was formed in 1841 in Liverpool (UK) when a group of cotton brokers created a set of bylaws and rules to help regulate the sale and purchase of raw cotton.
At present, about 90 per cent of the world’s cotton is traded internationally under the bylaws and rules of ICA, which has over 550 members across the globe.
