15th November 2012 Vientiane, Laos
That was the week that was
Phew, what a week! A visit by our Foreign Secretary, William Hague, the Asia Europe Summit and the formal opening of our new Embassy in Vientiane all in the space of two days! This is what we have been preparing in the last few weeks and I’m pleased to say it all went well.
The Foreign Secretary arrived early on Monday 5 November (Bonfire Night in the UK!) and went straight into his programme with the unveiling of a plaque at our new Embassy building-to-be. This was a “soft” opening: we will now carry out some necessary alterations to enable us to occupy hopefully by the end of the year. The Foreign Secretary was accompanied by Mr Soulivong Daravong, the Lao Minister for Energy and Mines. We then went on to the Don Chan Palace Hotel for a celebratory reception at which both the Foreign Secretary and Minister Daravong delivered a speech (you can read the Foreign Secretary’s speech here)
The reception was really well attended by people from a range of sectors and I’m grateful to everyone who came along and made it a success. You can see photos from both events on our Flickr tab on the front page of this website.
The Foreign Secretary was also in Vientiane to attend the 2012 Asia Europe Summit. This brings together around 50 countries from the two continents and has taken place every two years since the first event in Bangkok in 1996 (we hosted in London in 1998). This year’s event took place against the backdrop of economic difficulties in Europe and challenges facing the global economy. Hosting these events is a challenge for any country but Laos rose to the challenge and ran a very smooth event, impressing all of us who attended.
So now it’s back to the job of establishing our Embassy. We have set ourselves some pretty tight goals to have a fully functioning Embassy by the end of March next year, working in our new Embassy office, with all our staff recruited and structures and systems in place. And in the meantime, we are building our strategic goals and establishing the networks and relationships to deliver them. No rest for the wicked, as they say!
Dear Philip , my Pa always used to tell me that ‘s better to do 1 thing per day with success than a lot with little or no success at all. So your proper report is another proof to me of how difficult it is to put wise words into a working-day/week. That ‘s why I want to send you my full respect in re. of these last weeks and days and this well deserved success.Esp. if there are some installations – like the Embassy – in a phase of “…building – to – be…”. Remarkable to me was also to read the Foreign Secretary ‘s speech and the words of Minister Daravong. So congratulations and further success plus much luck for your next steps until March 2013. BW Ingo-Steven Wais, Stuttgart/Wuerttemberg.