Foreign Chambers Aim to Promote Global Business Relationships

Whether promoting U.S. business abroad, foreign investment in the United States, or a specific set of policy issues, inter-national trade and commerce chambers act as honeybees to pollinate global business relationships.

Although most of these associations are located in Washington, D.C., or New York City, many countries and regions boast multiple chambers. New York organizations tend to focus on the United Nations and foreign consulate work, while those in Washington, D.C., are more attuned to embassies and U.S. federal legislation.

There is no one national association of foreign chambers, and the range of organizations runs the gamut from think tank-oriented operations to associations that attempt to resolve specific disputes. Associations also vary in whether they are bilateral, with members in more than one country, or unilateral, which often work on behalf of U.S. companies promoting trade in a foreign country.

And don’t be surprised if you call a listed chamber, particularly a smaller bilateral chamber, only to find the number has been disconnected. Many are created to support a narrow investment policy or project, or they have a single large backer. When the objective is achieved or the priorities shift, the operation may be mothballed.

The Washington Diplomat profiles several of the more active organizations that help promote international commerce:

National U.S.-Arab Chamber
of Commerce
If you are a U.S. businessperson looking to engage in commerce with the Arab world or an Arab resident looking to expand into the United States, a meeting with David Hamod is a good place to start.

“We’re a bridge between the United States and Arab world,” said Hamod, president and chief executive officer of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce (www.nusacc.org). Based in Washington, D.C., the chamber is routinely in contact with more than 1,500 U.S. companies. “We’re the point of contact in the U.S. for national chambers of commerce in 22 Arab countries. For the Arab world, we are the only chamber of commerce in United States recognized and authorized by the Arab League and the General Union of Arab Chambers of Commerce in Beirut,” Hamod said.

The 10-employee chamber also serves as a business resource to Arab chambers of commerce and business people throughout the Arab world, noted Hamod. “They contact us with questions regarding due diligence efforts and to find reputable partners in the U.S. They also ask us to organize visits to the U.S.”

Hamod said his chamber has recently facilitated visits for chambers from Lebanon and Bahrain. Likewise, Hamod’s group serves as a resource to U.S. businesspeople looking for reputable partners in the Arab world and for trade and investment opportunities. As such, his group also leads U.S. delegations to the Arab world, including planned delegations to Tunisia and Libya in the first quarter of this year.

The chamber is also active in promoting free trade agreements. The first U.S.-Arab FTA, between the United States and Jordan, went into effect in 2001. A U.S.-Morocco FTA was approved by Congress in 2004, and a U.S.-Bahrain agreement was passed by Congress in December and must now be signed into law by the president. Next up is Oman, with notification from the White House to Congress that an agreement had been reached in October.

Hamod noted with pride the chamber’s role in providing testimony during the Moroccan and Bahraini congressional FTA hearings. “That’s a big deal for us,” he said. “We feel we were the only ones that could really talk about the benefits those agreements would bring.”

In addition, the chamber is there to answer Arab embassies’ questions regarding trade and investment, help with due diligence work, and address any commercial issues that may arise. “U.S. companies with problems in the Arab world and Arab companies with problems in the U.S. contact embassies, but most embassies don’t have resources to launch an investigation to determine if a company has lived up to its agreement,” Hamod said. “We can perform due diligence type of work, both ahead of time and after operations start. We also attempt to resolve commercial disputes through processes like arbitration after things go wrong.”

The chamber has also addressed the impediments to U.S.-Arab trade caused by post-9/11 measures. “We had meetings one on one with Secretary of State [Colin] Powell and Homeland Security Secretary [Tom] Ridge, when they held those positions, to address those issues,” Hamod said. “We also prepared a report that is now a year old that described the amount of investment being lost by the United States as a result of its restrictive visa policy that got very nice play in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and on National Public Radio.”

And in a larger sense, the chamber is a voice for the positive during a challenging time for U.S.-Arab relations, said one Arab diplomat.

“I think the chamber is assuming an increasingly important role between the Arab world and the United States that goes beyond facilitating business opportunities and promoting business relationships,” said Hussein Hassouna, ambassador of the League of Arab States to the United States. “It is helping citizens of the Arab world and citizens of the United States to gain a better understanding of one another at a time when the image of each has suffered harm in the other’s mind.”

Canadian American Business Council
The Canadian American Business Council (CABC), established in 1987, is a nonprofit, issues-oriented organization aimed at elevating the private sector perspective on issues that affect the two nations (www.canambusco.org). The group, with 150 paying members but more than 2,000 on its mailing list, supports only one full-time employee and relies on resources donated by members. It eschews involving itself in narrow, transaction-related issues and instead focuses on larger underlying policy issues.

“Where we take on issues is where the interests of Canada and the U.S. connect. We don’t come out on one side or the other in a trade position,” said CABC Executive Director Maryscott Greenwood.

There are exceptions, however, such as when one side seeks to avoid complying with international rules. In a currently raging soft timber trade dispute between companies in each country, the organization plans to file a brief opposing efforts by some U.S. lumber interests to declare the dispute resolution provision of the North America Free Trade Agreement unconstitutional. “If the NAFTA dispute resolution process were to break down, it would be terribly concerning to all our member trading partners,” Greenwood said.

The diplomatic corps of both countries are intimately involved in the organization’s affairs, she added, noting that the CABC’s advisory board is co-chaired by the current ambassadors of each country to the other. In addition, many former ambassadors between the two countries are on its advisory board. Greenwood said that beyond lending credibility to the organization, they sometimes advance policy suggestions, such as a recommendation by several former ambassadors two years ago that there needed to be greater focus by the council on border infrastructure issues, pointing out that one of the world’s busiest border crossings, the Detroit Windsor bridge, was becoming a bottleneck because of its inability to handle more traffic.

U.S.-ASEAN Business Council
The U.S.-ASEAN Business Council Inc. (www.us-asean.org), referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, seeks to be the voice of the American private sector in the 10-country ASEAN market. It has 150 members, nearly all of whom are headquartered in the United States.

“Our job is to help our member companies build their competitiveness and market share in Southeast Asia, whether in investment or market share,” said Council Senior Vice President Walter Lohman. “We also think that’s in the mutual interests of the countries in the region because with investments come American standards of management, jobs and many other things.”

The council was instrumental in developing and securing passage of the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, the first in the ASEAN area and is now working to negotiate a U.S.-Thailand FTA.

The council also tries to resolve non-business challenges, such as the Southeast Asian tsunami and, more recently, the specter of avian influenza, serving as a clearing house of information for member companies on the development of disease prevention measures and providing health care training for avian flu prevention and control.

Lohman said his council has frequent contact with foreign embassies in Washington, and a question that often comes up is whether the council’s members can support micro businesses in thei r countries to help the nations’ lower economic strata.

“All the foreign politicians are looking at that because it’s a constituency issue. But that’s a hard area for us to find a match with our members, as the economies there are focused on things that we care about, such as handicrafts and rattan furniture, but that don’t match up with our members, who are largely Fortune 500 companies,” Lohman explained. “We tell them that if they improve the business environment generally for our businesses, that is the best thing they can do, because when a big company goes in there, they hire hundreds of small venders and that creates a ripple effect. By making it easier for large-scale U.S. investment in a country, you actually improve the opportunities for small- and medium-size local companies. American businesses are good at supporting those businesses.”

Council of the Americas
Founded by David Rockefeller in 1965, the Council of the Americas (www.americas-society.org) promotes understanding and dialogue in the Western Hemisphere through cultural, political and economic initiatives among all countries in the Americas. In particular, it seeks to promote core values including democracy, free trade, economic and social development, and the rule of law. It has 170 members in various business sectors, representing a large component of U.S. investment in, and trade with, the rest of the Americas.

“If you look at a continuum of a think tank on one side and a trade association on the other, we’d fall in the middle,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president at the council. “We have aspects of a chamber of commerce. We work on issues such as promoting trade agreements, lobbying, supporting specific trade agreements, and resolving investment disputes. If a company has a specific problem in the region, we would, as appropriate, lend a voice to get it resolved in a favorable way.

“But we are also broader than that because we also like to help to establish a policy environment in which business can be conducted easily and effectively, including some issues more attuned to a think tank. We believe the most effective investment climate is one where people are the best educated, have good health care, and the business climate is protected. We’ll use our institutional weight with other governments and the U.S. to help create those conditions.”

The council focuses the majority of its outreach in New York and Washington, D.C., although it also holds an annual conference in major Latin American cities, such as Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Bogotá.

Farnsworth conceded that promoting the council’s goals of free trade and privatization have been complicated by problematic business privatizations in Mexico and Central and South America that in recent years have helped elect populist and left-leaning governments wary of outside interference and suspicious of the private sector.

“Right now we are in a downward cycle of leaders in power with respect to liberalization. We support bringing people out of poverty, as do all of these leaders, but the question is how you do it and do you do it in way that encourages direct foreign investment that’s necessary, or do you do it as a populist? Although there is a definite swing to the left, it’s important that each country be dealt with on its merits,” Farnsworth explained.

“We distinguish between the traditional left, such as the Brazilian government of [President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva], who has done a reasonably good job and who is fairly orthodox in his economics—which is also the case with Chile’s [President Ricardo] Lagos and Peru’s [President Alejandro] Toledo governments—and, on the other hand, the populist left leaders, such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales, who suggests that the woes of underdevelopment were caused by United States, has an aggressive anti-U.S. agenda, and who is threatening to nationalize all kinds of private investment, including the energy side.”

Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of DC
The Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of the Metropolitan Washington, DC Area, Inc. (www.pacc-dc.org) promotes Filipino and Filipino-American businesses in the metropolitan Washington area through educational seminars, networking events, and collaboration with other business and professional organizations, said President Mitzi Pickard.

“We also seek to increase the visibility and exposure of our members through our Web site, business directory and other links on the Internet, and serve as a liaison between American companies in metro D.C. interested in doing business in the Philippines,” Pickard said, noting that the chamber currently does not assist Philippine companies seeking to invest in the United States.

She said the chamber, created in 1993 and boasting 100 members, has expanded from largely focusing on service industries, such as travel, restaurants and realtors, to a wider range of business players, including consulting firms, government contractors, health care companies and financial services.

Pickard lauds Philippine Ambassador Albert del Rosario and the Philippine Embassy Commercial Office in Washington for their support in providing resources and referrals on how to do business in the Philippines, and attending the chamber’s programs and events. She said the embassy and the chamber have collaborated on several seminars, including “IT and Outsourcing Opportunities in the Philippines,” “Microfinance Opportunities in the Philippines” and “Current Business and Economic Trends in the Philippines.”

American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Southeast Region
Although a number U.S.-Israeli bilateral chambers of commerce exist, the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Southeast Region (www.aiccse.org) is one of the more active in the area.

“Our focus is in developing business relationships through a variety of arrangements, including joint ventures and allied market agreements,” said Tom Glaser, president of the chamber, which is headquartered in Atlanta and serves 450 members in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi and Israel.

“On the one hand, there is the typical pattern of Israel companies looking to get into the U.S. market. Through membership, we help to get them ready to market, introduce them strategic partners and customers, and help them open a U.S. operation and handle issues related to headquarters and substantial operations. We also work with American companies looking for technologies in Israel, to acquire an Israeli company, to establish operations in Israel, for partnership relationships, or for a way to export into Israel.”

Glaser said that since its creation in 1992, the chamber has been involved in facilitating completed transactions worth more than $850 million. An example he cited was assisting regional telephone giant BellSouth Corp. in acquiring rights to the newly de-monopolized wireless market in Israel and in BellS outh’s subsequent sale of its stake in to an Israeli partner. Glaser said the chamber assisted BellSouth with cultural issues dealing with Israelis, helped them meet governmental officials, and introduced them to real estate officials when trying to set up cell towers.

The chamber is a member of the Association of America-Israel Chambers of Commerce and Industry (AICCI), a national network of similar organizations throughout the United States. That network, Glaser said, allows the associated chambers to offer Israeli companies access to markets and industry expertise throughout the country.