THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS - The newly appointed ambassador’s to the Kingdom of The Netherlands were invited by WTC The Hague for an informal meeting on Wednesday October 15. During this New Ambassador’s trade meeting they were given the opportunity to meet the key people of the most important trade and investment promotion organizations, informing them and their staff of their role by explaining how to find the right partners/information when companies and organizations of their home country approach their Embassy with questions about the Netherlands.

Eight ambassadors, H.E. Joseph Cole ambassador of Malta, H.E. Igor Popov ambassador of Macedonia, H.E. Mikalai Barysevich ambassador of Belarus, H.E. Mrs Maria Caffi ambassador of Chile, H.E. Mrs Janet Lowe ambassador of New Zealand, H.E. John Neary ambassador of Ireland and H.E. Mrs Orsolya Szijjártó ambassador of Hungary, attended the meeting.

During the meeting Mr Frans Engering, Chairman of WTC The Hague, gave a short introduction on the Dutch trade and investment promotion structure. “Promoting international trade and investments is one of the most important tasks for a World Trade Center organization. In that respect we here in the Hague have recently taken the initiative to reinstall the tradition of receiving the newly appointed foreign Ambassadors for introducing them and their staff to the Dutch trade and investment promoting organizations and the structure of the Dutch trade and investment promotion. By some reason this structure differs a lot from the structure in most other countries, Mr Engering explained. Mr Engering’s main goal for the meeting was to give the ambassador’s a clear picture about the Dutch way of organizing trade and investment promotion and by the positive reactions of the ambassador’s we can definitely say this goal was achieved.

After the official part of the meeting there was an informal part, during which the ambassadors and there staff had the chance to have bilateral talks with the representatives of the major players of the Dutch trade and investment promotion.

Several organizations were presented at this meeting such as Netherlands Council for Trade Promotion (NCH), West Holland Foreign Investment Agency (WFIA), InnovationQuarter (IQ), Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl) and the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI).

The event was organized in cooperation with Mr Andrew van Esch of Daesch Creative Concepts, who is well involved in the international community in The Hague and experienced in working with embassies and international organisations.