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AmCham St Petersburg – 2011 results and achievements

As the year 2011 is approaching its end and the world is enjoying the Holiday Season, AmCham St. Petersburg is summing up the results of the year. It would be no exaggeration to say that for 14 years of work, the St Petersburg Chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia has evolved into the largest and most influential foreign business organization in North-West Russia, successfully advocating the regional business community’s common as well as member companies’ individual interests at all levels. The growing number of Russian companies seeking AmCham membership demonstrates that both the economy and the appreciation of our core values of transparency and responsibility are growing in Russia. AmCham St. Petersburg has become a key player in the local investment scene thanks in large part to the impressive work and dedicated efforts of our members.

Finishing 2011 and greeting the upcoming AmCham St Petersburg Jubilee Year of 2012, we are happy to report the following achievements:

• Customs concept implementation - further closure of the remaining customs posts prevented;
• Labor relations with the disabled - collected legislative amendments from St Petersburg members delivered to the Russian ministry of Health and Social Development through Moscow HQ;
• Temporary staffing issue – data on potential impact on St Petersburg member companies collected and passed on to Moscow HQ;
• United Social Tax increase  - reduced rate for IT sector;
• Authorized Economic Operators - member companies views and suggestions delivered to the Ministry for Economic Development via Moscow HQ;

• Energy tariffs growth – the issue was raised through the St Petersburg government on a federal level, and maximum 15% controlled annual growth of tariffs was set up;
• Customs procedures at Pulkovo, St Petersburg and Baltic customs;
• Localization process and lack of local suppliers – special Search for Suppliers (S4S) program developed jointly with CEDIPT St Petersburg;
• Lack of qualified labor force – Dual Education initiative launched; IT Academy established;
• Ice situation in the St Petersburg Sea Port – the Port authorities jointly with the City government and Rosmorflot developed a plan for the 2011-2012 navigation season to mitigate winter weather implications.

On the international level, AmCham’s critical role in Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been widely acknowledged in Russia and abroad; but following this great success, in the year ahead, AmCham will now be a fundamental informational resource in terms of analyzing and communicating what this accession will directly mean to our member companies and across sectors.

During 2011, the Chapter has held the total of 148 events and activities, including but not limited to:

• The Annual Meeting in March and two General Membership Meetings in May and September brought to you high-profile speakers – the State Duma Deputy Ilia Ponomarev, Chairman of the St Petersburg Investment Committee Alexey Chichkanov and a member of the Presidential Commission for Modernization and Technological Development of Russian Economy Igor Agamirzian, who spoke and answered your questions about most important issues on the economic agenda of the region.
  

Detailed information and reports on all our activities – events, meetings, conferences and seminars as well as projects and program - can be found on this website.

We hope you have enjoyed the passing year and your membership with AmCham St. Petersburg. We highly appreciate your support in 2011 and assure you that we shall do our best to meet your expectations in the Chapter’s Jubilee Year 2012.

Season’s Greetings!

AmCham St Petersburg Staff

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2007 was a jubilee year. Having operated in Northwest Russia for 10 years, AmCham St. Petersburg has grown into the largest and most influential, truly international business association in the region. Congratulating the Chapter on the 10th anniversary, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko said that from the very establishment, AmCham St. Petersburg had become a respected member of St. Petersburg business community and a good partner of the city government in improving the investment climate and attracting foreign investments.

As Governor Matvienko stressed, “AmCham is coordinating government relations and patronizing the companies that represent almost every country of the world in St. Petersburg. It is much owing to AmCham’s proactive and constructive approach that the international business community and the city government have succeeded in establishing efficient communication. It would be true to say we speak the same language—business.”

In 2007, AmCham St. Petersburg kept the growing pace in terms of both membership and activities. Another 16% increase brought the number of the Chapter members up to 169, making us the largest in terms of quantity and most representative in terms of the membership. It would be no exaggeration to say that AmCham St. Petersburg is now representing the interests of all the foreign investors in Northwest Russia, having become the starting point for every prospective investor considering the region. The growing number of Russian companies seeking AmCham membership demonstrates that both the economy and the appreciation of our core values of transparency and responsibility are growing in Russia.

During 2007, the Chapter held the total of 85 events and activities, which means we were meeting with you every two or three days.

The 10th Anniversary Annual Meeting and two General Membership Meetings brought to you high-profile speakers who spoke and answered your questions about most important issues on the economic agenda of the region.

AmCham St. Petersburg held the total of 12 advocacy meetings with Russian and foreign authorities aimed at improving the investment climate and attracting foreign investments in the region. We are proud to report that no effort of ours has been unsuccessful.

To give you just a few examples of the advocacy efforts that AmCham was pursuing in 2007:

• To help foreign manufacturers meet their Russian counterpart suppliers, AmCham St. Petersburg participated in a number of meetings with regional authorities and roundtables with Russian companies to deliver international companies’ major requirements, bridge the gap and establish mutual understanding leading to mutually beneficial cooperation.
• AmCham’s dedicated efforts aimed at lowering excessive administrative burdens found St. Petersburg Government’s full understanding and resulted in a new department within the City Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade and a special Governor’s interdepartmental council established to identify, investigate and resolve issues of inappropriate actions by regional administrations of federal authorities (Rospotrebnadzor, Rostechnadzor, Fire Inspection, Tax, Migration, etc.).
• A number of customs-related issues preventing AmCham member companies from normal operations were resolved, including problems with Kronstadt seaport terminals shutdown and clearance of spare parts imported for a manufacturer’s internal use.
• Relying on AmCham Moscow headquarters and working closely with the Federal Migration Service at both federal and regional levels, AmCham was constantly trying to resolve major and minor migration, work permit and registration issues, fighting for simplifying the procedures and against inappropriate local interpretation of the federal legislation.
• AmCham St. Petersburg’s active participation in surveying member companies’ needs for migrant workforce and delivering them to the employment authorities provided significant input to building the regional requests for 2008 quotas.

Many other issues that AmCham member companies were facing in their operations in Russia were successfully resolved by our dedicated efforts.

Five seminars on the most topical issues—WTO accession, migration, cooperation between foreign investors and local suppliers, public-private partnership and labor market—drew much attention and attracted speakers and participants from the relevant federal and regional public authorities and member companies’ leading experts.

The most active part of our operations—committee meetings—continued to grow, having held 57 meetings. A new committee was created to discuss manufacturing issues, and having worked on the ad hoc basis for just half a year, it proved its efficiency and moved to the permanent basis. The traditionally most active HR Committee continued working on improving the labor force supply situation in the region, joining the efforts with other committees and regional authorities. A part of the solution—improvement of migration policies—was continuously discussed with the Federal Migration Service. The Customs & Transportation Committee followed its cooperation schedule with the Northwest Customs Administration, holding meetings with the customs authorities on the monthly basis. While resolving the issues related to customs logistics, another hot issue on the committee’s agenda appeared—the lack of seaport capacity in the region and the concept of in-land terminals aimed at improving the situation. The issue was pursued in close cooperation with the City Committee for Transport and Transit Policy. The Taxation Committee worked ever more actively on monitoring the tax legislation and advocating member companies’ interests in terms of taxation and tax administration, working closely with the regional tax authorities.

Four traditional social events—Soccer Tournament, U.S. Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Holiday parties—gave fun and warmth to AmCham members and friends and their families. In 2007, the most popular July 4 celebration brought together over 600 participants from member companies, regional government authorities and diplomatic missions who enjoyed fine weather, mouthwatering food and lots of entertainment.

All the year long, AmCham St. Petersburg was striving to provide member companies with best of services. The U.S. visa application process for AmCham St. Petersburg member companies was significantly simplified. Our relocation to new, larger and better-organized offices in December will help us hold larger meetings and provide you with still better services, ensuring our sticking to the ROI principle.

Fig. 1.  AmCham St. Petersburg membership by groups of countries

Fig. 2.  AmCham St. Petersburg membership from EU countries

Fig. 3.  Map of AmCham St. Petersburg membership

Fig. 4.  Flags of AmCham St. Petersburg membership (in the alphabetical order)

Dear AmCham members and friends:

Before the Annual Meeting, we are traditionally summing up AmCham St. Petersburg’s 2009 results.

Notwithstanding the harshening crisis, AmCham St. Petersburg managed to retain its membership representing virtually every major foreign investor in the region, and remain the largest and most influential, truly international business association in Northwest Russia. Over 20 new members joined the Chapter in 2009, proving perspectives of the regional economy. Today our membership flies the flags of 22 countries from three continents (for the complete list of our membership, visit www.amcham.ru/spb/members).

Last year, AmCham St  Petersburg kept its pace in terms of events and activities. We held an event every three working days (80 total), with a quarter of those being big-scale policy and social events, and three quarters — committee meetings (for the complete list of the events and activities, visit www.amcham.ru/spb/news/amcham). The family of the Chapter’s committees grew, too — meeting today’s challenges, we added the Environment, Health & Safety and Automotive committees to the agenda (for the full list of our committees, check www.amcham.ru/spb/committees).

Advocacy has remained AmCham St. Petersburg’s top priority in 2009, with a series of significant successful efforts. Over 50 advocacy activities covered a wide range of issues at the federal and regional levels. Within the full scope of its activities, the Chapter has made major advances in several directions of top importance:

• Lowering administrative burdens. AmCham St. Petersburg’s systematic work on identifying and eliminating administrative burdens got utmost importance in 2009, when the crisis made the barriers an excessive burden that prevents companies from optimizing their operations and requires significant resources to overcome them. Many of those barriers exist at the federal level, and AmCham St. Petersburg in cooperation with AmCham’s Moscow HQ and the city authorities initiates relevant amendments. Among our successes:

  • certain improvement in the migration legislation and administration, including work permits;
  • important administrative reglaments have been adopted;
  • certain improvement in the field of the sanitary protection zones; etc.

  Yet, there are many more issues to resolve, including connecting industrial enterprises to engineering networks; customs logistics and administration; tax administration, etc.

  In this field, AmCham St. Petersburg has developed direct dialog with regional offices of the federal agencies, including:

  • Consumers’ Rights and Sanitary Inspection (Rospotrebnadzor);
  • Ecological and Technological Inspection (Rostechnadzor);
  • Ministry of Emergency Situations’ State Fire Inspection (Gospozhnadzor);
  • Federal Customs Service (FTS) and its Northwest Directorate (SZTU);
  • Federal Migration Service (FMS);
  • Federal Taxation Service (FNS);
  • State Labor Inspection (Gostrudinspekcia);
  • Post of Russia;
  • Federal Arbitration Court;
  • Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS);

  and others — to identify the challenges that investors face when dealing with those authorities, help them resolve the issues on the everyday basis, and suggest ways for improvement.

• Improving investment climate. AmCham St. Petersburg is constantly monitoring application of the investment legislation and keeps suggesting ways of improvement in the direct dialog with governments of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast.

• Taxation. Among many issues of taxation and tax administration, a top priority in 2009 was the Unified Social Tax reform that jeopardized HR-intensive businesses, particularly in the IT sector. AmCham St. Petersburg collected member companies’ input, developed suggestions and forwarded them to the federal authorities through the Moscow HQ and city government.

• Waste management. With the new legislation and administration in the field, member companies faced lack of information and established procedures. AmCham St. Petersburg worked closely with the regional and federal authorities to resolve the issue.

• Labor market and professional development. AmCham St. Petersburg facilitates the multilateral dialog between employers, employees and educational institutions. With the Chapter’s assistance, many member companies have established successful partnership with relevant colleges and universities.

• Competitiveness. One of AmCham St. Petersburg’s top priorities is establishing a dialog between international manufacturers that have built their production facilities in the region, and Russian suppliers and contractors, which can help both optimize logistics and cost structure and increase the localization percentage. Among the wide range of activities in this field, the Chapter regularly organizes round-tables to bring together foreign investors and their potential Russian counterparts and discuss issues of establishing mutually beneficial cooperation and increasing Russian enterprises’ competitiveness.

• Innovations as an integral part of competitiveness are also a priority for AmCham St. Petersburg. Sharing vast international experience of the member companies, the Chapter is actively submitting various suggestions on how to stimulate innovative processes in Russia. In 2009, AmCham St. Petersburg took an active part in developing the St. Petersburg Innovation Development Program, and co-organizing the Russian Innovation Week in St. Petersburg.

• Power saving as a way towards the economic efficiency. Recognizing member companies’ extensive experience in implementing power saving technologies, and AmCham St. Petersburg regularly holds round-tables to share that experience with Russian counterparts.

• Handling individual issues of our member companies.

• And the last but not the least, AmCham St. Petersburg continues actively participating in a number of advisory boards (among those the St. Petersburg Government’s Entrepreneurship Development Council and Industrial Council) and working groups formed by regional authorities, to deliver member companies’ issues and suggestions.

Neither the crisis nor the weather could prevent AmCham St. Petersburg members from having a good rest after a good work. All the traditional social events were preserved in the Chapter’s calendar 2009, attracting generous sponsors and contributors and happy guests:

• the Chapter’s Mini Soccer Cup in June with over 30 member companies’ teams competing and the traditional super game between AmCham St. Petersburg “Dream Team” of member companies’ top executives and St. Petersburg Government’s team headed by Vice Governor Mikhail Oseyevsky;
• the U.S. Independence Day celebration that attracted six hundred guests — AmCham members, regional authorities and diplomats with their families and friends — who enjoyed mouth-watering food from member hotels, foot-tapping music and cheerful entertainment; and
• the Holiday Party in December that gave a nice coda to the hard but interesting 2009.

(Full listing of AmCham St. Petersburg’s events and activities is available at www.amcham.ru/spb/event-calendar.)

 

In 2010, AmCham St. Petersburg does not only continue pursuing the 2009 initiatives, but — considering the quickly changing environment during the economic crisis — is looking for every opportunity to assist member companies.

We cordially welcome your suggestions and initiatives, as best ideas have always come from you, AmCham members!

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• Проект Областного закона "О внесении изменений в областной закон "О государственной поддержке инвестиционной деятельности в Ленинградской области""
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• проект Таможенного кодекса Таможенного союза

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