Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It is with great honour and privilege that I provide this update to you all as CACCI President. It is my intention to provide you with regular updates during my time in this important role. I would like to start this update by thanking the CACCI Vice- Presidents for their support during the first months of my tenure.

Having been a CACCI Vice- President for some years prior, I know the collective experience and knowledge the Vice- Presidents bring in furthering CACCI’s aims and objectives. Again, I thank you! Next week I will embark on my first official international trip as CACCI President.

I will be holding key meetings in Singapore and New York on my way to Bogota, Colombia. In Bogota I will be meeting with my fellow World Chambers Federation General Council colleagues for our first meeting for the year. As CACCI’s representative, I believe our members and the Asia-Pacific region are critical on the global stage.

My only hope is that I do CACCI proud. I look forward to updating you in the next edition of the CACCI Profile on my reflections and insights from this important meeting. I also encourage you to connect with me via LinkedIn where I will be providing regular updates during my travels. But before I set off, I thought I would share with you my priorities as I start out representing and working for you, my CACCI friends and colleagues.

Firstly, I recognise that our strength lies in our diversity. Our members stretch from Türkiye all the way to New Zealand. We comprise 25 countries, spanning vast cultural significance and diversity.

CACCI is a proud organisation — having worked since 1966 to ensure prosperity for all within our region. Like many of you, I am realistic about the challenges that confront us. But we are also excited about the opportunity it presents.

The reality is — and we all know this now —the pre-COVID way of doing business is not fit for the post-pandemic world. The business of doing business has changed. We need to help businesses, particularly small and medium sized enterprises, to get SET for the future. In getting SET for the future we need to do three things well:

(1) Sustainability – We need to take this issue seriously. As business leaders, we know that it is what our staff expect, it is what consumers expect, it is what our planet expects. We need to ensure we prepare businesses for the regulatory environment that we will operate through over the next 30 years as we move toward net-zero commitments and economies.

(2) Entrepreneurial spirit – The types of businesses that will exist in 30 years will be completely different from the types of businesses we have today. We need to both support entrepreneurs and widen the scope of what it is to be an entrepreneur. Women, young people, people from marginalised backgrounds, people with disabilities, all need to be supported and included in our target beneficiaries as we look for new business development. Entrepreneurs, therefore, need mentoring, access to capital, access to digital payment methods, and the right incentives to ‘give it a go’ as we say in Australia.

(3) Trade – We need to build on the long and proud history of trade within our region. We need to provide access for SMEs to trade more easily with each other, and to help build more sustainable and inclusive supply chains. There needs to be new thinking in not only movement of goods but also labour as every country faces severe skills shortages. We need to build on the ethos of the ‘merchants of peace’ which sits at the heart of the International Chamber of Commerce, where if we trade in a fair manner with each other there will be little reason for any of us to enter into conflict.

So, in my time as CACCI President, I look forward to listening to the ideas you have in helping businesses get SET for the future. I look forward to building strong and enduring relationships with you. I look forward to representing you and advocating on your behalf in the many forums CACCI is and will be a part of in 2023 and beyond.

Again, I thank you for your support and for all that you do for CACCI.

Yours sincerely,

Peter McMullin AM
CACCI President