• The new Board’s objectives will include re-establishing Spain’s equity story.
• Jaime Malet has been the Chair since 2002. His candidacy was uncontested.
• The new Board will feature representatives of the key sectors for the economic recovery.
• AmChamSpain boasts 280 member companies with a total cumulative turnover of 248 billion Euro in Spain (24% of the GDP) which create more than one million jobs.

June 30, 2020.- The attorney and businessman Jaime Malet has been re-elected today as Chairman of AmChamSpain by the 103rd General Members’ Assembly. The Chamber was founded in Spain in 1917.

Malet has chaired the organization for 18 years (2002) and will extend his term until 2023. His candidacy was uncontested.

The letter sent to members indicates that “the COVID-19 crisis is the start of a period of enormous disruption and uncertainty for the economy” and thus highlights the need to use the institution's capacity for influence now more than ever to encourage investment flows and to make the Spanish economy more competitive.

In greater detail, these objectives include:

• Re-establishing Spain's equity story in international forums (including those that AmChamSpain organize in Spain),which may have been seriously damaged in recent months. The objective is to promote Spain’s credibility and potential as a destination for foreign investment (both direct and portfolio), along with Spanish companies that invest, market or thrive on American funds.

• Ensuring that the regulatory changes are made as pragmatically as possible. Spain will be an enormously indebted country. In order not to defraud upcoming generations who will inherit this debt, new regulations and public resources, based on efficiency and ex ante and ex post control, should be directed to rebuilding the productive network (including the hotel sector), to improving the international competitive standing of our companies, to reinforcing the educational system and to reskilling, to attracting investment and talent, and to creating mass, high-quality employment in the private sector.

• For these three years the Chamber will provide support to the productive sector in adapting to the new disruptive changes. Spain must clearly focus on:

• Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence
• The circular economy and the fight against climate change
• And it must be definitively integrated as a manufacturing center in global value chains, which will start repositioning very quickly following COVID-19

• The Chamber will continue advocating for the stability of the political system and for strengthening institutions.

• Lastly, the Chamber will promote a culture of responsible capitalism, based on ESG parameters (Environmental, Social and Governance), which will facilitate decision making, taking into consideration environmental risks, social justice, gender inclusion, and good governance.”

The Board has nominated Fernando Abril Martorell (Indra), Joaquín Arenas (Bank of America), Alejandro Beltrán (McKinsey), Jordi Botifoll (Cisco) and Helena Herrero (HP Inc.) as Vice Presidents. The Board of Directors has also welcomed Ana Argelich (MSC), Claudio Boada (Blackstone), Diane Tucci (Costco) and Andrés Esteban (Morgan Stanley). Luís Isasi, the organization's long-standing Vice President for 18 years as the president of Morgan Stanley, remains on the board as the new president of Banco Santander in Spain.

The Board will feature representatives of the key sectors for the economic recovery: Manufacturing (Atlantic Copper, Dow, Gonvarri, 3M), Pharmaceuticals (Amgen, Gilead, MSD, Pfizer), Technology (Cisco, Facebook, IBM, Indra, HP Inc., Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Microsoft, Telefónica, Xerox), Financial (Amex, AiG, Banco Santander, Blackstone, Citi, Merrill Lynch, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley), Consumer Goods (Coca-Cola, Damm, Costco), Entertainment (Walt Disney) and Tourism (Hotusa).

One of the organization's greatest achievements in recent years has been getting members involved in the work committees. Approximately 330 leading executives of member companies dedicate their time pro bono on 10 work committees focused on different topics: labor, tax policy, digital economy, energy, attracting investments, support to SMEs, innovation, intellectual property, tourism, and diversity.

In recent months, the Chamber has been especially active in organizing seminars and discussions to explain the effects of the pandemic on different sectors of economic activity and in global value chains. The organization has also worked hard on gathering and spreading the news of the altruistic work by member companies in their fight against the effects of the pandemic (“The members of AmChamSpain against COVID-19”). Over these months the Chamber has been carrying out important advocacy work petitioning the Government through letters, reports, articles, and statements to take measures aimed at attenuating the effects of the State of Alarm. Among other measures, the Chamber has worked to keep factories with continuous production cycles from closing, to allow orders in customs to be exported, and to authorize the entry of foreign experts for critical technological infrastructures into Spain. The organization has requested measures to relaunch the tourist sector, to freeze new taxes and not to repeal the current employment legislation. AmChamSpain has also requested eliminating the restrictions on investments from OECD countries (including the USA), giving them the same treatment as investment coming from other European Union countries. The Chamber has petitioned to lift the restrictions on the distribution of dividends when the suitable conditions are met so as not to depress investment even further. Overall, the Chamber seeks broad consensus among political parties and greater involvement with the private sector to come out of the crisis stronger.

The majority of large American companies in Spain and Spanish companies with interests in the US (including 16 companies on the IBEX-35) together with a growing number of SMEs form part of AmChamSpain. The Chamber is part of the largest business organization worldwide with sister entities in more than 108 counties, and in every state, city and sector of American activity. All these entities form part of the US Chamber of Commerce founded in Washington, DC in 1906. AmChamSpain is the third oldest American Chamber of Commerce in the world and was founded simultaneously in Barcelona and Madrid in 1917.

Jaime Malet’s candidacy received 100% of the votes emitted.