The Birth of the RACC |
February 2010 marks the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the
Romanian-American Chamber of Commerce™ (the “RACC”) – an early milestone
in the course of Romania’s emergence from beneath the cloud of Nicolae
Ceausescu’s brutal brand of communism. A journey through the RACC’s
twenty year history is a march through a past dotted with the formative
personalities and events that shaped Romania. It is a story of support,
dedication, hard work and affection for a people and a nation by
Americans, many of whom had no prior ties to Romania, and others who
were persecuted by Romania’s communists, had their properties stolen and
were hounded out of the country.
It all began one month after the Romanian revolution in January 1990,
when a group of American business leaders and professionals led by Mark
A. Meyer, Esq., an international lawyer based in New York, met to form
the Romanian-American Chamber of Commerce™. The founding of an
independent, apolitical and bilateral organization devoted to developing
and improving Romanian-U.S. relations and commerce was important to the
newly formed National Salvation Front government, which encouraged the
RACC’s founders from the outset. Although there had been an organization
of American business interests whose members traded with the Ceausescu
regime, it had virtually dissolved sometime prior to the December 1989
Romanian revolution. Consequently, representatives of major US firms,
such as IBM, Coca-Cola, Deloitte & Touche, Chemical Bank,
Colgate-Palmolive, Caterpillar, ConAgra, RKO, and GE, as well as smaller
import export companies, were delighted to participate in the formation
of a new entity devoted to expanding relations with a newly-free
Romania. With only a few exceptions, none of the firms participating in
the formation of the RACC had much prior experience in Romania. They
banded together in New York and, in February 1990, organized the RACC.
These US companies would become America’s business pioneers in a
fledging market that had far more promise than reflected in the harsh
reality existing after the fall of Ceausescu’s rule.
In February 1990, Romania had virtually no private businesses, no land
holdings or leaseholds, few private automobiles, a crumbling
infrastructure, little money with which to develop the nation, and no
modern business laws. The legal framework for a market economy was based
on codes dating back to the interwar period with which few people had
much knowledge. Romanians’ anguish over their plight was tempered by
hope, although shrouded in the stupefying grayness of the Mitteleuropa
winter accentuated by the continuation of the Ceausescu policies that
kept the street lights off at night and long lines for food and other
necessities. Citizens of Bucharest wandered the nighttime streets with
flashlights while foreign visitors congregated in the Intercontinental
Hotel watching babies being sold for adoption by criminal elements and
eating almost indigestible food. Yet as Americans arrived, they were
quite literally embraced in the streets in bear hugs by happy tearful
Romanians declaring that they had been waiting fifty years for the
Americans to come.
The relatively fair and free election of Ion Iliescu as President on May
20, 1990 was, unfortunately, followed on June 13th by an incursion of
thousands of miners from Romania’s Jiu Valley into Bucharest that led to
many days of riots in which miners brutally beat protesters angry that
Iliescu's party had won the elections, opposition leaders and even
passersby. It was an ugly week that hurt the new government’s image and
cost it dearly by keeping investors away and most-favored-nation
treatment unattainable for another three years. It also made the RACC’s
task of promoting trade and investment between the United States and
Romania that much more difficult. |
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The Early Years |
On
October 4, 1990, the RACC held its first event – a breakfast for
President Ion Iliescu with forty US business leaders at the Metropolitan
Club in New York. This event was followed in November 1990 with a
two-day RACC Conference on Privatization held at the Intercontinental
Hotel in Bucharest. Led by Mark Meyer, senior representatives of
Republic National Bank, Hill & Knowlton, Delloite & Touche,
Colgate-Palmolive and Credit Commercial de France, as well as leaders
from the New York City Council, spoke on aspects of creating and
managing a successful privatization program. Co-sponsored by Romania’s
National Agency for Privatization, and key-noted by video presentations
made for the event by Senator Claiborne Pell, then Chairman of the US
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Fritz Hollings, the then
Chairman of the US Senate Commerce Committee, the event was covered at
length by the Romanian media. Meetings ensued with President Iliescu,
Prime Minister Petre Roman, then-Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase and a
significant number of other government ministers and business leaders
aimed at establishing a strong link between the RACC and the government
and people of Romania.
By early 1991, the RACC had retained Jay McCrensky as its Executive
Director, opened offices in Washington, D.C., and commenced holding
monthly meetings, usually involving visiting Romanian government
leaders, parliamentarians, bankers, and some businessmen, as well as US
business leaders and government officials. Few meetings had less than a
hundred attendees. In the pre-Internet era, there was little information
readily available about Romania except through participation in such
meetings. The RACC was the forum chosen by virtually all Romanian
leaders to address the US business community. The first US luncheons or
dinners held for the US business community with Prime Ministers Petre
Roman, Radu Vasile, Mugur Isarescu, Victor Ciorbea and Adrian Nastase as
well as Presidents Iliescu and Constantinescu were RACC events.
In 1991, the RACC signed a protocol with the Romanian Chamber of
Commerce and Industry, executed by its then President, Aurel Ghibutiu.
The Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry became the Chamber’s
official partner in the United States. Re-executed on a number of
occasions since then, this document still forms the basis of the
continued affiliation between the RACC and Romania’s Chamber of Commerce
and Industry.
The early 1990s were turbulent years for Romania as it emerged from over
forty years of draconian communist rule. During these early years, the
RACC achieved many of the goals that were central to its creation. It
helped reintroduce Romania to the US business community as an important
trading partner, and it encouraged U.S. investment in Romania. The RACC
played an equally significant role in introducing Romanian business and
government leaders to American businesses. In the political context of
the early 1990s and throughout the decade, this was not a simple task.
Nevertheless, the Chamber was able to encourage trade and investment
between Romania and the United States and develop links that led
directly to hundreds of millions of dollars of business between the two
nations.
In 1992, the RACC took up the effort to effort to obtain Most Favored
Nation Trading Status for Romania. While other former East Block nations
like Hungary and Poland had obtained MFN treatment from the United
States in June 1990, Romania was fighting an uphill battle, often
against its own Diaspora who vehemently objected to the designation
while Ion Iliescu remained President. Much of the outrage stemmed from
the belief that the miners’ rampage of June 1990 was encouraged by
President Iliescu and it was compounded by the sense that since so many
ex-communists held important positions in the new Romanian government,
the revolution had been a sham to cover up a coup d'etat. Somewhat
fancifully, the Diaspora hoped that delaying MFN might result in the
removal of President Iliescu and the then government by a disgruntled
Romanian populace, to be replaced by persons without a communist past.
Sadly, the net result of their efforts was only to make doing business
with Romania costlier and therefore less attractive than with its
neighbors, reducing jobs, income and other opportunities for Romanians
who desperately needed foreign investment. In 1992, the RACC took up the
cause of MFN for Romania, lobbying Congress and the Administration over
the objections of many Romanian Diaspora organizations. In November
1993, the US Congress finally granted Romania Most Favored Nation
Trading Status and the Romanian government and media recognized the
RACC’s efforts in achieving this goal, declaring that the RACC’s work in
this matter was one of the ten most significant acts of the year for
Romania and granting it the then annual Libertatea Award. |
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The Moldovan-American Chamber of Commerce™ |
With the independence of the Republic of Moldova, a desire arose among
the members of the RACC to create a separate sister organization to
assist Moldova in its transition to a prosperous market economy. The
Moldovan-American Chamber of Commerce™ (“MACC”) was created in 1993 as a
non-profit corporation to facilitate opportunity development,
networking, information exchanges and cooperation between U.S. and
Moldovan businesses.
Anyone
who joins the MACC automatically becomes a member of the RACC -- and
visa versa -- thereby providing membership in two separate chambers of
commerce for the price of one! Although not as active as the RACC, the
MACC also conducts conferences, seminars, luncheons, and special events
for member’s to network and facilitate business development, while
providing direct assistance to members in achieving their objectives in
Moldova and the United States.
The MACC has held luncheons or dinners for Moldova’s Presidents Mircea
Snegur, Petru Lucinschi and Vladimir Voronin, as well as many of its
other leaders. Just last month, MACC members attended a private dinner
in New York with Moldovan Prime Minister Vlad Filat and Foreign Minister
Iurie Leanca in New York. |
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The Privatization Era |
With privatization in full swing by the late 1990’s, the RACC geared up to
provide targeted assistance to its members by providing in-depth symposiums on
various aspects of the privatization process and organizing investment missions.
Although there is really no way to tell for certain, the RACC believes that it
has been responsible for facilitating over half a billion US dollars in
investment in Romania over the years.
As interest in Romania began to grow, particularly with the start of the new
decade, the RACC sought to create chapters in other cities and states in the
U.S. These proved to be by fits and starts with some developing well and others
going no where. Today, the RACC maintains chapters in New York, California,
Ohio, Florida and Washington, DC. The chapters have their own officers and
boards of directors and decide upon their own activities, sometimes with the
support of the national office and the national chamber’s Executive Director.
The most active chapter is the New York Chapter, who’s President, Elias Wexler,
(also a National Vice President) is a successful entrepreneur manufacturing
fireproof and soundproof materials and door systems at Zero International, Inc.,
which maintains eight manufacturing and distribution facilities selling in 32
countries.
As Romania geared up its efforts to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
so did the RACC. Once again, the RACC lobbied the US Congress and the
Administration and played a crucial role in pressing Romania’s successful bid
for NATO membership not only in the United States but in Europe as well. This
time, the RACC was joined by the Congress of Romanian-Americans led by its
President, Armand Scala – also a National Vice President of the RACC. These
efforts culminated in President George W. Bush’s historic visit to Bucharest on
November 23, 2002 to welcome Romania into NATO. Facing a crowd of over one
hundred thousand Romanians patiently waiting in a pouring rain, the President
told them: “The promises of our Alliance are sacred, and we will keep our
pledges to all the nations that join us. Should any danger threaten Romania --
should any nation threaten Romania, the United States of America and NATO will
be by your side. As a NATO ally, you can have this confidence -- no one will be
able to take away the freedom of your country.”
By 2004, the RACC was conducting web-based teleconferences with leading
personalities, ministers, ambassadors, and even President Ion Iliescu. After the
election of President Traian Basescu, the RACC hosted an event for him on his
visit to Washington, DC, as well as private meetings for RACC Corporate Council
members. The nature of the interest in RACC programs has become increasingly
refined and targeted. An excellent example was the RACC sponsored two day
conference in San Francisco chaired by RACC Florida Chapter President Alfred
Goldberg and RACC California Chapter President Charles Chongo on April 26-27,
2007 for over a hundred IT executives from the United States and Romania.
Towards the end of the last decade, the RACC initiated monthly Chapter President
(and Corporate Council) telephone conferences to plan programs and develop new
strategies. These conferences include representatives from the Romanian Embassy
in Washington, as well as from the consulates. |
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The RACC’s Third Decade |
Ushering
in its third decade of existence was the RACC’s election to membership
on the Board of the European-American Bi-National Chambers of Commerce,
the only bilateral chamber from a newly admitted EU member state in the
organization. The European-American Bi-National Chambers of Commerce of
the United States is the association of the EU member states’ bilateral
chambers of commerce in the United States and includes the British,
French, German, Italian, Greek, Austrian, Belgian, Finnish, Portuguese,
Luxembourg, Spanish, Irish, Danish, and Swedish bilateral chambers, as
well as the Swiss Chamber as an associate member.
Both the RACC and the MACC are registered trademarks that protect their
names from being used by others. On several occasions’ during the past
twenty years, the RACC has enforced its trademark rights, including in
successful litigation in the United States District Court, against
persons seeking to confuse the public for person financial gain.
The Chamber recently created a LinkedIn page taking advantage of the
Internet’s social networking phenomena, and will soon originate monthly
member web conferences. The RACC is restarting its once popular real
estate investment missions to Romania led by Washington, DC Chapter
President Gabe Ivanescu, one of America’s most successful
Romanian-American businessmen. The Ohio Chapter under immigration
attorney Svetlana Schreiber’s presidency is in the process of organizing
a spring symposium on Romanian green energy investment opportunities in
Cleveland. Over the years, the RACC has organized over one hundred
conferences dealing with trade and investment issues throughout the
United States and Romania. A list and accompanying description of just
some of those many events since 2005 can be found at
www.racc.ro
Today, the RACC continues to be the meeting point of business and
government leaders from both Romania and the United States. It has
proven itself ready to adapt as business, commerce, and technology have
evolved with each passing decade. In both favorable and troubling times
the RACC continues to strive to be an innovative institution that excels
in sustaining and further developing relations between Romania and the
United States. For these reasons, we look to the next twenty years with
great optimism and eagerness. |
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Editors Note: It is our policy not to mention our clients by name in
The Romanian Digest™ or discuss their business unless it is a matter of
public record and our clients approve. The information herein is correct
to the best of our knowledge and belief at press time. Specific advice
should be sought from us, however, before investment or other decisions
are made.
Copyright 2010 Rubin Meyer Doru & Trandafir, societate civila de avocati.
All rights reserved. No part of The Romanian Digest™ may be reproduced,
reused or redistributed in any form without prior written permission
from the publisher.
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