Taipei Times: How does AmCham Taipei work with other Chambers around the region?
Richard Vuylsteke: In Asia Pacific there are 20-25 AmChams which are part of the Asia Pacific Council of AmCham's (APCAC).
Within that we have a Greater China group, one of my jobs besides the in-house stuff is to coordinate with other organizations. The two biggest are APCAC and the US Chamber based in Washington.
They track the activities of people on the Hill and we tap into their database of people with responsibility in Asia Pacific.
Within APCAC, there is a Greater China subgroup. APCAC usually meets twice a year then there is a spinoff within that meeting of the Greater China people. We discuss revenues and how to maximize budgets since we are operating as NGOs.
Most revenue comes from dues with a little coming from events. There's a lot of varied responsibilities.
TT: Who does AmCham work and cooperate with in Taiwan?
Vuylsteke: The AmCham here (Taipei) is one of the most active in terms of lobbying because we live in a fully democratic society, so we have a lot of meetings with the executive branch as well as the legislature.
We also interact with the city (of Taipei) a lot. We also coordinate with AIT.
We have some joint committees with the European Chamber of Commerce and Trade and we keep in touch with all the various trade offices as well as the various US state trade offices.
There's a lot of organizations that are concerned with business environment here as well as maintaining a certain quality of life for the members of the community.
TT: What does the AmCham staff do, day in day out?
Vuylsteke: We have 15 staff, including the best business publication in town (TOPICS). We give support to the committees through a government relations section. They help coordinate meetings with various offices.
For instance, we have met with every major political party in the Legislative Yuan to remind them of the importance of passing these final bills for WTO entry.
We also publish TOPICS, the business confidence survey, regular legislative updates, the White Paper.
Some of these we post to the Web site or e-mail to members. The staff is really a facilitator for a lot of the things the committees want to do, like functions and luncheons.
TT: Are committees and events self-funded or do they get funding from the big pool of funds?
Vuylsteke: Some committees have special budgets for additional lobbying or translation services. For example, they may want to go in and lobby on a specific law, so perhaps they want to get some legal advice.
We're not doing "guanxi" lobbying, we're doing substantive lobbying so we have to get our facts straight.
We have a process for that which is quite complicated, but also it's effective because we walk in there with our ducks in line. Often we want to get the information across bilingually because there are many who don't read the English.
Generally speaking most events are self-supporting and members pay for their own lunch.
TT: How many members are there and who can join?
Vuylsteke: We have just under 1,000 members, from that 610 companies are represented. An individual members must be a US citizen, which is NT$15,000 joining fee plus NT$21,000 per year. Company membership is NT$31,000 per person and corporate membership is NT$52,000 per year. There's also associate membership for non-US companies.
Our basic criterion is that a company has to be an international company with some kind of US exposure.
TT: Despite the membership rules is the Chamber strictly American, or is it quite international?
Vuylsteke: It's really one of the unsung strengths of the Chamber. If you go to a monthly luncheon or the Holiday Ball, chances are you will sit at a table with four or five languages spoken.
Altogether there's probably a total of 20 countries represented in the Chamber. Our members have a lot of international exposure, which is one of the reasons why our lobbying has got a lot of punch to it.
TT: What are the non-serious, social events on the Chamber calendar?
Vuylsteke: The biggest things are the "Hsieh Nien Fan." The big dinner that we throw around Chinese New Year to thank the government for their cooperation and access. This year, President Chen spoke and last year President Lee did. We had around 500 people at those events.
After that is July 4 Fair and then the anniversary party around mid-September. The idea for that is to have a good time and mingle. It's more of an AmCham-family event. We also have the annual meeting where we try to get a big speaker.
Then a Holiday Ball, there's so many different religions including Buddhists and Taoists that we can't really call it a Christmas Ball.
TT: Is the Chamber simply about business?
Vuylsteke: We have two major objectives, one is to lobby on behalf of our membership. The other is a vaguely defined thing in our articles of association, which is to work to improve the quality of life of our membership.
So, through our committees and through other Chamber functions we are also looking at activities that are just basically fun. We have golf outings and trips around the island. Through the committees we have luncheons and breakfasts with government officials and visiting business people. Also we have various professional development components and events.
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