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Kr. Valdemara str. 33
Office 11 (entrance from courtyard)
Phone: +371 67218043
Fax: +371 67218045
info@bccl.lv |
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| October 8 |
| Anita Kaleja at the BCCL Monthly Dinner 'The New British Ambassador to Latvia and UK's Business Development Plans' |
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Your Excellency,
Dear friends of the British Chamber of Commerce in Latvia,
Our most loyal members,
I am proud to welcome you here at the Hotel Europa Royale - a friendly place indeed for us to come together in order to meet with Her Royal Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Latvia, his Excellency, Mr. Richard Moon.
Let me express my gratitude to our Ambassador for choosing the membership of the BCCL as the audience for his first public address in Latvia. Our gratefulness, nevertheless, comes with a sense of achievement. I can confirm to you now that with 142 voting members, the BCCL has become the largest foreign chamber of commerce in Latvia. On behalf of the Board, I don’t hesitate to say that we take this fact as a vote of confidence from our new and our long-standing members. But most importantly, the Board accepts the challanges of the new situation and is currently working on creating new opportunities for our membership both to strengthen the position of our members locally within the Latvian market, as well as, to expand the reach of our international partners.
Amongst us tonight we have a delegation of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce. The head of the delegation, Mr Mick Page, will address you and introduce his delegation shortly. I am personally very glad to see him again, since this trip is part of an ongoing cooperation. I encourage our members to use this opportunity to get to know our guests and network in general.
In order to build further the network of our international partners, the Chamber has organized a trip to London in October where our delegates will be able to enjoy an exciting programme of events. On top of what has become our traditional schedule of business meetings, for the first time our delegation is invited to Westminster Hall where we will meet MP Bruce George, the Chairman of the British-Latvian All-Party Parliamentary Group, and Mr. Simon Anholt, the leading specialist in public diplomacy and nation branding hired by the Latvian government to consolidate the Latvian brand. I trust that these meetings will introduce new opportunities for our members to become more visible in processes that affect the creation of a better business environment in Latvia.
We as a Chamber, have been previously known as a facilitator. The Chamber has been very successful in organizing various events for our members to discuss and further their business contacts. As a result, we have earned the trust of the business community that is demonstrated in our diverse and growing membership. Nevertheless, our new status of the biggest foreign business chamber warrants that we, as a chamber, accept the leadership role in the Latvian business community. Last year the Chamber actively promoted corporate social responsibility both as a duty of social engagement, as well as a winning business strategy for companies in order to position themselves favorably for consumers and in the labour market. Perhaps, the time has come to expand our leadership role. The Board is exploring new ways in which we can serve our members in terms of agenda-setting activities. We will report back about our successes.
We live in turbulent times. There are rumours about potential future problems in the areas of fiscal policy, the labour market, as well as public governance in general. I think that these concerns should be taken seriously because they affect the welfare of our membership. Already, the Board has had a meeting with the new Ambassador, and we enjoyed a very frank and fruitful discussion about potential cooperation in the future. The Embassy has been the most trustworthy partner of the Chamber before, and with the help of our new Ambassador, our partnership will thrive. Moreover, since the restructuring of the United Kingdom Trade and Investment in the Baltic’s, we have received another ally in the person of Indrek Pallo, who is now our representative in the Baltic’s. He is in our midst tonight, and I sincerely hope that our members will get to know him and trust him, as I most certainly do.
In the spirit of our chamber, the discussion with the new Ambassador was often supplemented with, as the rest of the world knows and some of the Brits can practice, something called ‘British humour’. I should say that our new ambassador is amongst the best in this field. I trust that in his address he will convince you, as he did in his discussion with the Board, that he is an expert, not only in this field, but many more. His genuine interest about various processes in Latvia is admirable. I trust his expertise will develop rapidly and we will be glad to follow his leadership.
Without any further ado, I introduce Ambassador Richard Moon.
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