AmCham Year-End Report 2020-2021: From the first days, we tried to make the connections and propose solutions that worked.
Dear Members,
When we sit down to write intros for yearend publications, we typically want to convince the reader that this was somehow an exceptional year.
This year we do not need to try very hard. The coronavirus disrupted business in ways that no worst case scenario could estimate. The board, our councils and committees, Weston and I spent more time this year trying to find answers that would keep companies in business and people employed than any of us could have imagined in January 2020.
We are proud of that work. Not everything we proposed was accepted by the government, and much of our work ended in airplanes empty on runways, but our AmCham did our part in overcoming this continuing crisis.
From the first days, we tried to make the connections and propose solutions that worked. We were able to put hospitals and health officials in the Czech Republic and Slovakia on a call with experienced doctors in China to give them some hard-gained knowledge of what treatments and procedures worked. We helped put together a deal that would have supplied the country with 60 million facemasks at pre-covid. We put money into Y Soft’s face shield production. We played a role in shaping the bankruptcy moratorium and the Anti-Virus program. We worked with individual members to make sure they could get their factory workers on the floor, and to adjust to managing entire organizations in home offices.
We have more hard work ahead of us to pull ourselves wholly out of this crisis. And we look forward to working with you to make it happen.
Michal Chour,
President
AmCham Board of Directors
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