The World Trade Centers Association (also abbreviated as: WTCA) founded in 1970, is a not-for-profit, non-political association dedicated to the establishment and effective operation of World Trade Centers (WTCs) as instruments for trade expansion representing 316 members in 91 countries. The WTCA is an unofficial umbrella trade association that unites corporations and government agencies in international trade. The WTCA's founding principles are:
- To encourage the expansion of world trade;
- To promote international business relationships and understanding among nations;
- To foster increased participation in world trade by industrializing nations;
- To create and encourage mutual assistance and cooperation among members; and
- To promote and further the concept of the World Trade Center.
The WTCA is governed by a 24-member international Board of Directors, composed of executives from WTCA members around the world, and elected by the membership. Eight permanent committees have been established to carry on the work of the Association in the following fields:
- Committee on Facilities and Functions
- Committee on International Relations and Development
- Committee on Planning and Finance
- Committee on Public Relations and Information
- Committee on Tourism, Hospitality and Cultural Exchange
- Committee on Trade Education, Training and Research
- Committee on Trade Fairs, Trade Marts and High Tech Parks
- Committee on WTC Standards and Quality
- Committee on Peace & Stability through trade
In December, 2008 WTCA Committee on Peace and Stability through Trade awarded its first Global Corporate Leadership award to Robert Thompson, Founder of CenTradeX, inc. Nashville, TN
The WTCA has more than 287 licensed world trade affiliates in 88 countries and more than 750,000 companies and individuals
Famous quotes containing the words world, trade, centers and/or association:
“It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“The most conservative man in the world is the British Trade Unionist when you want to change him.”
—Ernest Bevin (1881–1951)
“[Madness] is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)