Chris Wren
Executive Director, British Chamber of Commerce
The mission of the chamber is simple: to facilitate trade and investment between Indonesia and the UK. Our focus in particular is providing market access support to British companies that are not yet doing business with Indonesia or not yet investing and to also provide various platforms of development opportunities for those British businesses that are already trading or are already investing in Indonesia. There are certain sectors that are more difficult than others in terms of doing business. The supply chain of the oil and gas sector, for example, is really tough. A great deal of the ease in doing business for a company is the result of using the expertise that is available, which is where an organization like the British Chamber of Commerce comes in. We have a team that is dedicated to providing market access support across sectors. Our greatest asset is our network with a huge reservoir of experience across all sectors, whether it is within membership or stakeholders outside membership. The best and most practical thing that we can do is bring an interested British party together with someone that is already doing it here or has an interest in the space here and that has an excellent reputation, and they work it out and remove the bumps in the road.
Jan H. Rönnfeld
Managing Director, German Chamber of Commerce
The German Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia is part of our worldwide network of 135 offices in 90 countries. We are an organization with a number of functions; one, the oldest, is representing the interests of our 500 corporate members. About 50% are German companies, while the others are Indonesian companies who either represent German companies or have business ties with Germany. We do individual as well as generic advocacy and act as a social and informative platform with around 200 events per year in different formats; some connect to German culture or activities such as Oktoberfest and Asparagus Dinner, while others are informative about new technologies or legislative changes. Within the trade and investment promotion function we act on behalf of the German government and support everything that is market-entry related either in Indonesia or in Germany. If a company wants to acquire information about Indonesia it can appoint us to conduct market and product studies. We also provide legal advisory services such as corporate establishments, registering for licenses, working permits, and so on. We have our own lawyers, but also work with a number of specialized local as well as international law and tax consultancy firms. The third part of our responsibility is the development and implementation of various government and institutionally funded business development programs for specific sectors or topics.
Ulf Backlund
Chairman, Ulf Backlund
EuroCham is essentially the chamber of the chambers of Europe, where we all come together in the interests of all the European business chambers and speak on behalf of Europe as a whole. EuroCham does not specifically support individual companies. Our role is mainly about advocacy and lobbying the Indonesian government and different authorities to make the voice of European business heard. Significantly over the last few years we have evolved to work closely with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN). KADIN is powerful as well so it is an excellent partner. We have MoUs with it and are currently working on writing a joint position paper to give input to both the Indonesian and EU governments on all the topics where EuroCham and KADIN have a common view. EuroCham is also gradually improving our influence here. We have even been invited to roundtable discussions with certain ministries. We are also part of the Customs Reform Team as an observer to give our input to those reforms. We partner with all the different chambers when there is a common need to act, for example, where there is a manpower regulation that affects all foreigners. In these cases, we all come together and pool our resources under the International Business Chamber of which all chambers are members.
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