Annual General Meeting 2019

Last week our Annual General Meeting was held in Hanoi and HCMC, in Casa Italia and Nikko Hotel respectively, via video conference. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Michele D’Ercole, and all the councillors of the Board of Directors were present, alongside with Mr. Tedesco, from the Italian Embassy in Hanoi, Mr. Cajati, from the Italian Consulate General in HCMC and Mr. Paolo Lemma, representative of ICE.

More than 30 members of our current 53 showed to the event: we are very glad of such outcome of people and we thank all of you for your presence.

The meeting, as usual, focused firstly on the report of last year’s activities and on the forecast for 2019. 2018 was a very fruitful year for ICHAM: our membership reached 81 companies, which is the highest number we have ever recorded, and we celebrated our 10^th anniversary. These facts combined filled us with joy, satisfaction and self-confidence, not only because they demonstrated that ICHAM has consolidated the trust of the Italian community in Vietnam, but also that such confidence is constantly increasing. We expect these results to steadily grow soon.

Last year turned out to be successful also in many other aspects. For instance, our second edition of Lifestyle Made in Italy – the B2B event dedicated to interior design, building materials and furniture – managed to include 20 Italian companies and established itself as the most important B2B event dedicated to design in Asia. We are very proud of this outcome and we are currently organizing the third edition, which will take place on 27-28 June 2019. Another important result of last year was the strengthening of our relationship with Italy: for example, we gave the impulse for the promotion of tourism to Puglia with Puglia Region; then we organized B2B missions with Trentino Sviluppo, we took part in HOMI fair in Milan, and last but not least we organized a Food and Beverage Mission with the Italian-Vietnamese chamber of commerce in Turin.

We also achieved many goals in Asia: we partnered with ASEAN Automotive and Motorcycle Parts Manufacturing Summit 2018; we sent our delegation to the World Wine Meetings Asia in Singapore; we also took part in the Asia-South Africa Area meeting 2018 in Doha and to the High-Level Dialogue on Italian-ASEAN economic relations in Singapore, which this year is scheduled in June, in Hanoi.

Moreover, we committed to strengthen our relations with Europe, specifically by confirming our partnership with EUROCHAM and supporting EVBN.

This year we would like to continue this path and achieve many other goals on the way. This year three B2B events are already on our agenda. Pharmacy Made in Italy took place in Hanoi in January and was addressed to companies in the pharmaceutical and para-pharmaceutical sector; Such an event was possible thanks to the Italian primacy in Europe for the production of pharmaceutical products and our attractiveness in the Asian market. Lifestyle Made in Italy, as mentioned above, is scheduled in June and we are currently in the process of organizing the event and finding interested companies and potential buyers. Moreover, in autumn we would like to propose the first edition of Machinery Made in Italy, dedicated to the companies of the food-processing machinery sector. We are very optimistic about these events and invite all of you to stay tuned for updates. For more information on the upcoming and past editions of our B2B events, please check our brand-new page: https://icham.org/made-in-italy

This year we have already partnered with two big events on infrastructure: BRICSA 3^rd Annual Transport and Infrastructure Vietnam and ASEAN RAIL Infrastructure and Expansion.

Moreover, we have committed to becoming greener and eco-friendly, and we want our members to join us in this. That’s why we have engaged with “No-Waste VN-Saving Environment in Vietnam Project overview”.

In the second part of the meeting the assembly proceeded to approve the budget and the Charter Amendments. The most solemn moment of the assembly was towards the end, when the election of the new councillor of the Board of Directors took place. The two candidates were Mr. Luca Puglielli, General Manager of TND Vietnam Trading Corporation, and Mr. Joseph Perucca, General Director of GIVI Vietnam. The assembly chose Mr. Perucca. ICHAM would like to congratulate him again for this achievement and wish him all the best in his new position.

The meeting ended at 19 with a brief networking coffee.

We would like to thank again our members for their constant and sincere support and wish a very successful year to all of us.