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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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| May 12 |
| Anita Kaleja at the BCCL dineer with The Rt Hon Lord Douglas Hurd "Crisis and opportunity - a British view of the EU and NATO today" |
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My Lord Hurd,
Your excellencies Mr. Ambassador Richard Moon of the United Kingdom,
the Ambassador of Canada,
the Ambassador of Finland,
the Ambassador of Japan,
the First Secretary of the Swedish Embassy and the First Secretary of the Turkish Embassy Dear guests from the British Chambers of Commerce in Estonia and Lithuania,
Dear members,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to have this opportunity to welcome you all at the British Chamber of Commerce in Latvia dinner.
My informal address shall consist of two parts. Let me deal first with internal matters of the British Chamber of Commerce in Latvia. I trust that through our deeds we will have the pleasure of introducing, ever so slightly, our distinguished guests with the spirit of our organization. Then, I shall have the honour to make introductory remarks and to welcome our key note speaker - the Right Honourable Lord Douglas Hurd of Westwell. Your Lordship, I should confess that the sense of admiration and respect have made it difficult for me to form an introduction worthy of preceding your address. I thus beseech the leniency of your appraisal.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There are three internal matters that I will address tonight all of which are critically important for the institutional development of the British Chamber of Commerce in Latvia.
Firstly, the British Chamber of Commerce champions in Latvia the cause of the community engagement and of social responsibility of business. With this in mind, we have developed a programme of support for charity organizations. Tonight, we go further. In this special event we are asking for your support to St. Saviour’s church in Riga. As an organization we have pledged our support - our donation will constitute 20% of tonight’s revenues. With these remarks I would like to appeal to every one of you: kindly extend your support both individually and as a representative of an organization to a lasting institution of British presence in Latvia the Anglican Church. As Ieva mentioned, you can take part in the silent auction for valuable prizes that have been donated for this event by our benefactors. These include signed copies of Lord Hurd’s books. But please, take with you information, talk to Mr. Calitis, the Pastor at St. Saviour’s, and reward yourself with yet another good deed. On your tables you will find envelopes for personal donations to the church. Thank you very much!
To proceed to the second internal matter, today is a special day because a new pan-Baltic platform for cooperation amongst the British Chambers of Commerce has been created. Today saw the first ever joint board meeting of the British Chambers of Commerce from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. I would like to congratulate everybody on this historic occasion. Let us all work together to explore the many opportunities created by our commitment for cooperation.
Finally, I would like to invite our Board member Mr. Neil Jennings to the front. Strategically, for our chamber it is of greatest importance to introduce a new generation of young business people to a business conduct that our organization avidly advocates. Here tonight we welcome in our midst three future colleagues - the winners of our annual graduate competition.
Neil, I give the floor to you.
As a Chairperson of the BCCL I cannot help but to reiterate on behalf of our members our common feeling of best wishes in the very beginning of your careers.
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me now proceed to the second part of my address – in which I will introduce the key-note speaker that we are all waiting for with great anticipation.
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that now, 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union the world is being transformed yet again.
Tonight, our most distinguished speaker – the Right Honourable Lord Douglas Hurd of Westwell – will address a topic of great significance in these trying times when nations, businesses, non-governmental organizations and we, as individuals, are searching for alliances of success in what amounts to be a new political and moral order for the markets. This new era comes with its own demands which cannot be ignored. The speed and reach in the movement of goods and services is bewildering. The sweeping flows of information and knowledge are changing our mental and physical landscapes. How shall we cope with these challenges both individually and collectively?
Individually, we remain confronted with our fears and hopes. The soundness of our judgements about risks and benefits of our day-to-day conduct are threatened by many uncertainties that we are facing. I suppose that every one of us is trying to live through the dilemma of trust. On the one hand, trusting too much creates opportunities for the abuse of power and misrepresentation of information which eventually harms us. On the other hand, trusting too little eliminates many potentially beneficial deals by thus artificially limiting our choices.
Collectively, in this changing space of competing and often incommensurable values we are presented with new challenges. The institutional framework and value-based alliances are still under construction with no clear guarantees as to where in the future the dividing lines will be drawn.
And here we are, in Latvia - a place where the strength, authority and power of competing values is continuously tested. This sense of open-endedness and an institutionally ill structured future is the benchmark against which our values are being shaped and tested.
It is in these times of uncertainty that we yearn for guidance. Our speaker tonight is a man who commands the highest respect and admiration for his life long achievements in shaping the fabric of our world. No list of his accomplishments will be complete hence with your permission I shall refrain from presenting an incomplete list.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are fortunate to have this opportunity to listen to the Right Honourable Lord Douglas Hurd in his address entitled „Crisis and Opportunity - a British view of the EU and NATO today”.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please join me in a warm welcoming applause for our distinguished speaker.
Your Lordship.
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