Podgorica, July 9, 2018 – AmCham Montenegro held a General Assembly Meeting on Monday, July 9, 2018. AmCham President, Ms. Katarina Bulatović said this year’smeetingis special for us since we are celebrating a decade of the American Chamber of Commerce in Montenegro. „I am particularly pleased to be able to reflect on the goals and results we have accomplished over the past 10 years together with you, the ones who present our essence and our strength“, she stressed.

From the first day of its work, the AmCham in Montenegro has been dedicated to the improvement of the business environment, based on the Rule of Law, predictability and transparency, with a clear goal to attract more American and other foreign investments.

As the mission of the AmCham in Montenegro is to represent the interests of our members, our endeavors are focused on helping the decision-makers to hear the voice of our member companies, with a view to eliminating business barriers. I would like to highlight a particularly important event “Openly with the Prime Minister”, which we have been organizing for the past three years. Our desire is to have a discussion on major business challenges, in the direct conversation between the Prime Minister and the American Chamber of Commerce.

We signed the Regional Cooperation Agreement with the AmCham organizations in Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo, which enables us to intensify cooperation and present opportunities for investing in Montenegro.

Today, we have over 80 members and we have earned a position of an important part in creating business policies, which makes us the leading collective voice of American and other investors in Montenegro.

„I believe that I can rightly say that in the past 10 years the American Chamber of Commerce has fulfilled its vision of being a representative of the collective voice of the international business community in Montenegro and a reliable partner in the development of the business environment. Removing business barriers and a stronger social environment, connecting with partners and developing a dialogue – these are all challenges that we have successfully dealt with, in the previous period“, she concluded.

The President gave the Certificates ofAppreciation to the U.S. Ambassadro, H.E. Margaret Ann Uyehara, Honorary President of AmCham and Deputy Chief of the Political/economic Section at the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Vivek Joshi, at the same time a Honorary Member of AmCham Board of Governors.

H.E. Margaret Ann Uyehara, the U.S. Ambassador to Montenegro congratulated to all 10 years of incredible possibilities in Montenegro. She emphasized that AmCham is one dynamic and incredible business organization which should be proud of all achievements so far. AmCham is a force for positive economic growth and also a strong relationship between America and the other countries in the region.

Mr. Marko Miročević, PhD, AmCham Executive Director said that this year we will publish the fifth edition of the Business Climate Report. „While working on these reports, we have found that there was a growing need for the highly qualified workforce. Therefore, the project “AmCham Internship Program” was created, within which over 150 interns gained their first work experience.“ – he emphasized.

The last created program „Invested in Montenegro“ will be launched this year. The aim of this program is to indicate the values shared by our member companies and the way that they return to society through concrete examples. The companies contribute in two ways, the first is financial where they invest resources in society, while the other, and more important for AmCham within the project is CSR.

When it comes to creating a better business environment, we have also paid attention to strengthening the relationship between the state and the business community. Last year we launched the “Partnership for Better Business Environment” program, with a mission to intensify cooperation, increase the level of mutual understanding and reduce business barriers. Within this program, representatives of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Health and member companies in our Committees for the Suppression of Gray Economy, Taxes, Labour Relations and Health Care worked together in a team atmosphere. The ultimate goal was, and still is, the creation of good laws and their better implementation by both: the public administration and the private sector.

AmCham Members were elected two members of the AmCham Board of Governors. Namely, on two vacant positions, were selected Mr. Christoph Schön, CEO &CFMO of Addiko Bank and Mr. Nikola Tripković, Executive Manager/Regional Manager of Coca-Cola HBC. They will begin their two-year mandates on August 1st, 2018. Members also decided on Financial Statements for 2017. They unanimously adopted the financial statements.