AmCham Macedonia Summer 2015 (Issue 46) | Page 29

AMCHAM NEWS Increasing Advocacy Cooperation with Other Chambers AmCham has led a number of initiatives over the past year toward increasing its communication and cooperation on business advocacy initiatives with other business associations in Skopje. AmCham is open for cooperation on the business advocacy front, since we believe our interests generally align with other organizations, we all have limited resources and a coordinated approach would be more impactful. AmCham identifies advocacy priorities via our Board and committees to ensure that we focus our energy on policies that truly impact the overall economic environment in the country and impact many companies, big and small, local and foreign. Our Board President was also recently invited to join a Northwest Chamber initiative to agree on a set of business recommendations toward minimizing the economic impact of the country’s current political crisis. While AmCham didn’t ultimately join this initiative, we believe our input improved the final message and look forward to other opportunities to cooperate. AmCham is open for cooperation on the business advocacy front, ... In late 2014, at the suggestion of a number of attendees at our corporate member meeting with 4 Ambassadors to Macedonia, AmCham organized a meeting of 7 international business organizations and economic diplomats from 5 embassies. The group agreed to increase information sharing on their advocacy efforts to identify cooperation opportunities. Most recently, AmCham convinced the State Tax Authority to begin holding quarterly meetings with representatives of at least 10 local and international business interest associations. Th