Recently the Embassy of the Republic of Malta in The Hague, the Netherlands celebrated Malta’s National Day of Independence with a social event that was attended by members of the Diplomatic Corps based in The Hague, Dutch government officials, business contacts as well as the Maltese community living in The Netherlands.
At the opening of the reception, a video message from the newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Promotion of Malta, Hon. Carmelo Abela was presented to the guests, which message highlighted the work of Malta’s Diplomatic network especially on the EU Presidency just concluded and Climate Change policy.
The Minister also expanded on the goals that will be embarked upon during his term and the focus on Trade Promotion. At the opening, H.E. Ambassador Joseph Cole also took the occasion to express his sympathy with the Dutch Government for the difficult times encountered by the fellow citizens of the Caribbean islands Sint Maarten, Saba and St Eustatius.
During the reception, guests were also offered tasting of wines, olive oil and tomato paste produced in Gozo – Malta’s sister Island which offers diverse and rich culinary products and is known as ” the island of wines”.
This was offered courtesy of Casa delle Fonti – Gozo Wine, a Dutch company which imports Gozitan Wine produced by the ‘ta Mena Agri-Business’, which are becoming ever more popular with the Dutch as seen by the increase of visitors to the Maltese Islands from the Netherlands during the last few years.
An increase of 17 per cent in 2016 and a 30 per cent increase already registered for the first half of this year. We look forward to host more Dutch nationals in 2018, the year of Valletta European Capital of Culture which will be the key attraction for the many tourists visiting the Maltese Islands next year.
Information about Malta:
www.visitmalta.com
www.gozowine.eu
