The AMCHAM Tax, Tariff and Regulatory Affairs Committee met on October 28th to discuss the OECD two pillar solution on taxing the digital economy and the pre-budget recommendations from AMCHAM members for the Union Budget 2022-23. The two-part interactive session was led by the Chairperson for the Committee, Ms. Neeru Ahuja, Partner, Deloitte India. The Co-Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Naveen Aggarwal, Tax Partner, KPMG in India, also shared his insights. The webinar concluded with the action to incorporate members views before submitting the pre-budget recommendations to the authorities. The presentation used for the virtual interaction can be viewed HERE.

AMCHAM was a key partner at the Indo Pacific Business Forum 2021 hosted by U.S. Trade and Development Agency and the U.S. Department of State and conducted virtually on October 28th – 29th, 2021. Over two days, sessions focussed on public-private partnerships to promote sustainable economic development across the region. Senior government officials, industry executives and other stakeholders discussed new initiatives to advance economic recovery and resilience, climate action and digital innovation, as well efforts to ensuring open investment environments, innovation-enabling policies, transparency and good governance. AMCHAM supported by nominating U.S. industry leadership at key discussion platforms during the event. On October 28th, Mr. Salil Gupte, Chairman, AMCHAM and President, Boeing India had a one-on-one conversation with the Chief Economic Advisor of India, Dr. Krishnamurthy Subramanian, on pathways to Indo Pacific integration. On October 29th, Ms. Kaku Nakhate, Vice Chair, AMCHAM and President and Country Head, India, Bank of America N.A. joined a panel of other eminent speakers to brainstorm on sustainable development through finance.

Read more about the new commitments that USTDA announced at the forum here: https://ustda.gov/ustda-announces-new-commitments-at-2021-indo-pacific-business-forum/

AMCHAM, in partnership with USAID/India organized the Winning Against COVID-19 Roadshow on October 26th. The objective of the roadshow was to mobilize private sector resources and capabilities to scale up vaccination initiatives in India. USAID has been partnering with the Government of India for nearly 70 years to address a range of public health and other development challenges, and shares India’s philosophy to engage the private sector as a partner in this journey. To accelerate the pace of vaccinations, 20 major corporations in AMCHAM’s network with a strong commitment towards the cause were recruited to participate.

In her welcome remarks, Ms. Sangita Patel, Director, Health Office USAID/India, mentioned that USAID has been very closely working with national and state governments, corporations, business associations and civil society organizations to accelerate COVID-19 vaccination efforts by supporting innovative demand and delivery options for some of the most vulnerable and hard to reach populations. Mr. Abhishek Gopalka, Managing Director and Partner, BCG and Mr. Salil Gupte, Chairman, AMCHAM and President, Boeing India, talked about India’s vaccination journey and the role corporates have.

Opportunities for the private sector were presented by the following:

• • Mr. Shiv Kumar, Co-Founder, Catalyst Group, Chief Integrator, COVID Action Collab spoke on VaxNow vaccine camps focused on vulnerable population groups. This initiative will leverage corporate social responsibility funds to support on-ground civil society organizations, to improve access to vaccines to rural and most vulnerable populations.
  • Dr. Sanjay Kapur, Managing Director, JSI India spoke on vaccinations via mobile vans. Mobile vaccinations will leverage mobile units and medical staff from private players, and vaccines from government sources to increase vaccine access for last mile populations.
  • Dr. Brian Wahl, Assistant Scientist, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health spoke on demand generation across the nation via a multimodal media campaign including social media and grassroots to address hesitancies by leveraging private sector capabilities across media and customer behavior insights.

The panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Arvind Kumar, Senior Advisor, Strategic Partnerships, USAID/India with panelists Ms. Remya Mohan, Mission Director, National Health Mission, Govt. of Gujarat, Mr. Ankur Malhotra, Chairman – COVID-19 Disaster Relief Management Task Force, AMCHAM, Head Corporate Affairs, CSR, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India and Dr. Raj Shankar Ghosh, Senior Adviser, Vaccine Delivery & Infectious Diseases, BMGF.

This was the first in a series of roadshows to engage the private sector to mitigate the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar roadshows would be organized in the coming months, focused on additional pandemic resilience efforts. The event was attended by 50 plus participants.

Resources shared during the roadshow include:

• • VaxNow Initiative by COVID Action Collab
  • Vaccination via Mobile Vans by JSI India
  • Vaccine Demand Generation by Johns Hopkins India Institute
  • ‘Teeka Lagwaya Na’ campaign videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWqiquYGrdw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RPY_cPj1Wk

The second meeting of AMCHAM’s National Executive Board for 2021-2022 was held on October 25th virtually. Mr. Salil Anil Gupte, Chairman, AMCHAM and President, Boeing India chaired the meeting. The board was briefed on AMCHAM’s Defense Delegation to Washington DC. Ambassador Arun K. Singh, Member, National Security Advisory Board, Government of India, addressed board members and fielded questions on the importance of the U.S.-India partnership, history of CAATSA, and possibility of a waiver for India, among other topics.

On the occasion of cyber security awareness month, AMCHAM India, in association with the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), Government of India, organized a virtual workshop on ‘Capacity Building on Cyber Recovery and Resilience’ on October 22nd. Lt General (Dr.) Rajesh Pant, National Cyber Security Coordinator, Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, gave the inaugural address and interacted with members. Mr. G Narendranath, Joint Secretary, National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), GoI delivered his special address in the session and shared his views on Cyber recovery and resilience. The workshop was aligned to discuss critical cyber security issues and various aspects of cyber recovery and resilience, which included security automation, end point security, critical infra workshop/simulation, resilient supply chain and many more. Mr. Dave Harvey, Managing Director, FTI Consulting, UK, Dr. Jerry Vochetloo, Field CTO Global Cyber Security Expert from Dell Technologies, Mr. Jit-Chuan Tan, Director, Systems Engineering, Dell Technologies, Mr. Amrit Singh Deo, Co-Chairman – Cyber Security Committee, AMCHAM and Senior Managing Director, Strategic Communications, FTI Consulting, Mr. Ripu Bajwa, Co-Chairman – Cyber Security Committee, AMCHAM and Director & General Manager, Dell Technologies, India, presented two workshops on cyber recovery and resilience.