H.E. Dr. Ahmed Nazif, The Prime Minister

AmCham Egypt is one of the largest and most active overseas affiliates of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, currently connecting more than 1700 senior executives as members. AmCham is also the regional secretariat of the AmCham MENA Regional Council currently chaired by AmCham Jordan and comprising AmChams of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Tunis, Morocco, and Algeria as members.

AmCham Egypt hosted leaders of AmChams from around the world in Cairo during the period from April 27-29, 2009. The purpose of the visit was to build relationships with the different organizations, share management experiences and best practices, discuss the roles of the different AmChams in promoting trade and investment between their respective countries and the United States, explore opportunities for joint cooperation between the different organizations, as well as to showcase Egypt's economy and culture.

The following AmCham representatives participated in the three day visit; AmCham Australia, AmCham Albania, AmCham Bahrain, AmCham Cyprus, AmCham Greece, AmCham Jordan, AmCham Lebanon, AmCham Morocco, AmCham Montenegro, AmCham Russia, AmCham South Africa, and AmCham Tunis.

During the visit, AmCham Egypt held an orientation meeting to familiarize its guest with its activities. Guests expressed their interest in learning more about AmCham Egypt‘s scope of work, its wide membership base, and the variety of services being offered. They were particularly impressed with AmCham Egypt's technology infrastructure, and its online services, its capacity as a training center to offer both online and classroom training, as well as its capacity as a research center to compile and publish reports covering all sectors of the economy.

Participants attended a training session by Mr. Tony Rossell, Vice President of Marketing General Incorporated, an expert on membership marketing and retention who flew in from the United States to discuss the latest trends in membership retention, and innovative techniques of membership marketing. The title of Mr. Rossell's Presentation was; "How to Develop and Manage a Successful Membership Marketing Program"
The delegation also got the chance to meet with H.E. Dr. Ahmed Nazif, the Prime minister at his office in the Smart Village. During the meeting, His Excellency highlighted the role that AmCham plays as one of Egypt's leading business organizations and a strong representative of the private sector that has played a major role in shaping Egypt's reform agenda. His Excellency briefed attendees on the reform measures undertaken by the government of Egypt, and how Egypt has now become on top of the list of the best countries to attract foreign direct investment as a result of these measures. His Excellency explained that deregulation was the main factor behind Egypt's success, as well as cutting down of tax rate to 20%. He also explained that the reason behind the fact that Egypt's financial system has not been much affected by the financial crisis, being what he portrayed as the sound state of the Egyptian banking sector, stressing that the system is not involved in the mortgage market or other types of mortgage financing outside of Egypt.

Each AmCham representative made a presentation on one successful project that was implemented to serve members of the organization, and some of the best practices from all over the world were shared. It was evident by the end of the visit that each AmCham has developed its own set of strategies that work best for it given the existing cultural, political and economic circumstances that prevail, and the type of partnership that each AmCham has developed with different stakeholders in each respective country. Each AmCham representative had a lot to learn from his/her fellow representatives.

A special reception was hosted on April 27, in honor of the visiting delegation at Le Deck at the Sofitel Cairo Hotel. Attendees included members of the AmCham Egypt Board of Governors, Committee Officers, Corporate Partners, and representatives from the different embassies. Guests enjoyed a spectacular view of the Nile River.  On their last day, all guests were escorted on a day tour of the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum.