Eleven years ago I moved to Russia and started business by establishing a million dollar loan, with my American partners, for Trinity Motors and David Yakobashvili. That grew to a ten million dollar revolving line of credit and Trinity has grown into one of Russia's most successful business organizations, linked to the New York Stock Exchange IPO of Wimm- Bill- Dann last February 8th. I saw in David something that nobody has bothered to mention. When David' growing up during the Soviet era, his father was in prison for committing the crime of doing business in the USSR. Now, I'll take a guy like that any day and loan him 10 million dollars, because I know he will lift the tattered flag of his father career high for the entire world to see. And he did. For the last 24 years I've been working overseas in the business of building on people's dreams and that strategy has provided big profits on both sides. We have financed over 100 million dollars in U.S. exports (mostly GM) in 10 of the Former Soviet Republics with a rate of repayment at 98 percent. In the early days you could say we were sort of the GMAC of Russia.
We believe personalizing business connections is the key to investing in the FSU. We helped start over 20 businesses in Former Soviet Republics and have learned that Russians are a very good risk. The perception the press and most American people have of Russia is wrong. Russia is a safe place to do business and Russia is a profitable place to do business.
Eight years ago, Russians saw the U.S. as both their model and their most important partner in world affairs. A poll published last year, however, found that the 650 Russian politicians, journalists and business leaders surveyed overwhelmingly consider China as Moscow's most important strategic partner. The United States of America came in a distant 6th place. This reflects a failure of our people to respond to meet the unique challenges posed by the break-up of the Soviet Union.
A couple of years ago, the American Chamber of Commerce surveyed American business executives working in Russia and asked: What's your Number 1 problem? The top answer wasn't the Russian government, it wasn't Russian taxes or corporate governance issues and it wasn't even the Russian Mafia. It was relating with their counterparts back home in the United States. Guys, we can do better than this. For the past 11 years the roof over my head, the new car in my garage and the food on my table have mostly come from the pockets of tens of thousands of Russians that have purchased our American products. But many American corporations, law and accounting firms have swept into Russia, conducting predatory "mining operations" to extract as much short term profit as possible with no regard for their Russian partners. Many Russians and peoples around the world these days feel their relations with America are like being on the receiving end of a municipal drainpipe. Corporations came in and solicited business plans and never read a word of the plans. They only looked at the bank statements.
I think we need to take a much harder look at what we, as Americans, have really done in an effort to build a meaningful business relationship with Russia. American heroes, like Maffhew Maly, who do speak out about our nation's failure to live up to the promises our government, such as the Defense Enterprise Fund, makes to Russia, are destroyed for their patriotism and honesty. So where is the transparency here in Washington? Buried by pork barrel politics-as-usual and ignored by the entertainment industry we now know as our news organizations. At a time when we have the greatest opportunity in history to prove America is a positive moral force in the world and that capitalism works, we Americans have lost our pioneering spirit to the legal exploits of people motivated purely by greed. I've had some of these so-called expert $600-per-hour consultants warn me time and time again that we would not succeed unless we paid them their fees to create the type of protective oversight they said our projects required. And they have time and time again proven to be just plain wrong. General Motors Corporation is one of the best examples of the American moral force for positive change in Russia today. I'm proud to say I am an American who has put his money and his life on the line to support General Motors Corporation's initiatives in Russia. Last year, GM launched the largest American investment project in Russian automotive history, a $332 million joint venture with the top domestic automaker AvtoVAZ, which is on schedule to begin production this September. I believe, GM will be seen as our nation's best example of an American corporation's efforts to assist Russia in its transformation to a market economy and economic self-sufficiency. Today I have my money in the building and property of a GM dealership in Krasnoyarsk and we're negotiating with GM Detroit to use a software and CAD development business we own in Krasnoyarsk and the closed nuclear city of Zheleznogorsk to help GM with the engineering of their new vehicle product development. The Soviet Union collapsed over ten years ago, taking with it the last major bastion of communism. A decade later, Americans are just beginning to comprehend that our country has a unique position of unrivaled power in the modem world. We have yet to determine how we should use this power, much less the responsibilities and opportunities it creates. Three Administrations have come and gone without taking on the crucial issues of our new status. Content in our prosperity, we have paid little heed to warnings of discontent and resistance from abroad. Only last September did we get the swift and painful message that we can no longer shirk our unique responsibilities.
Historically, no great power has ever possessed such an opportunity to work with a former adversary in removing the threat that confronts them both. No cause is more important to the security of our nations. The only thing we can't do is nothing. American businesses must make a greater and much more sincere effort to match our requirements to the capabilities Russia has to offer. We should build a future together between our small business communities by linking up our thousands of local American Chambers of Commerce with Russia's city administrations and help Russia with what they need most, marketing and management skills from real business owners and provide machine tool and equipment to help produce new products the way GM is doing. We must push aside the naysayers and bureaucrats, let freedom ring, and unlock the human potential and the dreams that lie buried in our minds and in our hearts.