Welcome Speech Given at the Reception in Norways Embassy in Berlin, Jan. 16. 2009

Mr. Ambassador, colleges, partners and friends,

 
I want to give my thanks to the Norwegian embassy here in Berlin and our ambassador, Mr. Sven Erik Svedman, for hosting us and arranging this reception. The buffet really looks very well.

I want to express a special welcome

• to my college from Sweden
• to all guests from Germany and other countries
• to my special accompanying Norwegian delegation.  
• and to all of you, coming from Norway, representing farmer,- food and tourism organisations, trade and industry, or quite simply yourself. Welcome to you all!

This is my first visit at The Green Week here in Berlin, but Norway has attended 22 times. I must say I am proud of inviting colleges, friends and partners to our beautiful embassy.  During these years the embassy has shown to be an important meeting place for business and social contact in the Green Week, between politicians and participants from trade and industry in the agricultural and tourism sector.

It is important for Norwegian farmers and both the food and tourism industry to develope our competitiveness through:

• Close contact with new international market trends, 
• testing Norwegian products in a demanding and economically strong market and
• building network and developing cooperation with new business partners.

The Norwegain stand this year is focusing of “Smaken av Norge - en reise verd” or “The Taste of Norway - a Journey worth” - or in other terms “ Wenn jemand eine Reise tut, hat man etwas zu erzählen”

In the Norwegian stand, we will show you different adventures related to Norwegian farming, food and tourism through the whole country - from the North, our Fjords and the inland. This is to escalate tourism and to increase the stream of German tourists to Norway.

What you can experience at the Norwegian stand, is a result of an offensive Norwegian food policy. We want to show you our competitive advantages connected to local food, local culture and the landscape itself, and how we make a total tourism product out of it.

But we are also here in order to learn from other countries how to build a national brand out of a total tourism concept. How can we give tourists in Norway a total experience of local food, local culture, the cultural landscape and the nature itself.

On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Norway I therefore have the pleasure to welcome you all, and in particular all our foreign guests being interested in meeting representatives from Norwegian farmers, food- and tourism industry in Norway.

Thank You!