From the Desk of the ED

From the Desk of the ED

The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) continues to cast a nervous pall on much of our activities but, with the right precautions, it is still “Business As Usual” at AMCHAM. We do, however, ask you to wash your hands on arrival to keep us all safer. 

We are sorry to see the postponement of the 2020 AmChams of Asia Pacific Business Summit in March due to the heightened health risk alert from the Singapore government. Not unlike the Summit AMCHAM hosted in 2018, this would have been an excellent platform to discuss key aspects of trade in Asia. We had been watching the reverberations of trade tensions and their partial resolution, but we are now also looking to see how far-reaching the disruption to supply chains will be as a result of 2019-nCoV and how much resilience is built into global value chains. 

To help us get snapshots and take the pulse of what is happening in our sphere, we ask that you please take part in the quick polls and surveys that we are issuing. Your input matters! 

AMCHAM is rolling out a few areas of focus this year. Firstly, you would have started to see us working to raise awareness of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), which feature prominently in our Membership Directory 2019/20.  Linking up with the UN Global Compact we are looking to help to make these goals relevant to the day-to-day activities of our membership. Another area we are supporting is the empowerment of women. Kicking us off down this path is a partnership with LeadWoman and their 3-day Board Journey training. Watch this space as there is more to come during March, the month of International Women’s Day.

The APEC SOM I is well underway in Putrajaya and we are starting to slowly see the emergence of some of the discussion areas that will go toward the formation of the next set of goals. AMCHAM was able to get some members accreditation to attend and their reports back to date have been encouraging. If you are interested in attending the accessible workshops at future SOMs, please contact us to learn more.