BENCHAM stands for Benelux Chamber of Commerce in China and is the Chamber for Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.
On 13 January Bencham organized its New Year’s cocktail in a rather unusual setting: Hard Rock Café (next to Landmark Towers and the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel), a place I had not been since the late nineties when I was based in Shanghai. Funny, it looked smaller to me, I guess because at that time is was relatively big. Now we have so many places it just looks like a bit more common.
There was the usual review of past activities and the speeches of the Chamber and the 3 countries involved:
– Nicolette Groot and Daniel Pauwaert for Bencham;
– H.E. Carlo Krieger (ambassador of Luxembourg), Didier Vanderhasselt (Minister Counsellor, representing the Belgian ambassador) and Siebe K. Schuur (Commercial Counsellor, representing the Dutch ambassador).

Bencham also introduced its revamped website: www.bencham.org and the details of the “Bencham X Ball” planned for 26 February 2011 at the Renaissance Beijing Capital Hotel, to celebrate the ten years.
In the late nineties I was myself the president in Shanghai of the Belgian Luxembourg Business Association (BLBA), what would later become the Bencham.