Consuls in Wales – Conswliaid yng Nghymru

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2012 – Today, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a US$ 1,068 million loan to Kazakhstan for the East-West Roads Project. The objective of the project is to increase transport efficiency along the section of the Western Europe-Western China (WE-WC) Road Corridor within Almaty Oblast, and to modernize highway management on sections of the Corridor.

SWISS POSITIONS

33 takes on sustainable approaches to building

9 May – 25 May

Private View:  8 May, 6.30pm – 8pm

Christian-Müller-Villa-Vals-Vals-©SeARCH.jpg

Welsh School of Architecture

Cardiff University

Bute Building

King Edward VII Avenue

Cardiff CF10 3NB

location here

This travelling exhibition, conceived and curated by Nathalie Herschdorfer, an art historian, features photographs of key Swiss architectural and engineering achievements of the last twenty years.

These 33 projects explore new technical possibilities where environmental protection and conservation are concerned, as well as being fascinating constructions in their own right.

The exhibition will be introduced by the Swiss Architect and Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture Jacob Hotz.

Note: Parking at Bute Building: the barrier is up from 18:00 till 19:30. This means that access to it is granted during this time frame and people can leave the car park any time after of course…

Cardiff School of European Languages, Translation and Politics is pleased to announce the following Public Lecture:

‘Russia’s Foreign Policy Priorities

in the Middle East’

Mr Denis Temnikov

(First Secretary of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in London)

From 1 May 2012 the Consulate of Switzerland will have a new postal address. The phone and mobile number, as well as the Consulate e mail address will remain the same.

New postal address:

Consulate of Switzerland
c/o Capital Law LLP
Tyndall Street
Cardiff CF10 4AZ
Wales, UK

E Mail: cardiff@honrep.ch

Please note:

For further information Embassy of Switzerland in London

New York Times calls Latvian PM “Star Pupil” in overcoming economic crisis

Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis last weekend attended a high-level informal meeting in Saariselkä, Finland, discussing economic issues and “was held up as something of a star pupil” because the Latvian economy had made a relatively quick recovery from the 2008-09 economic crisis, according to a New York Times article on the conference
According to BNS, Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, the organizer of the conference, also praised Latvia for cost-cutting measures and tax increases that had helped the country to regain international confidence and to return to economic growth.

“It’s clear that if you cut expenditures and raise taxes, it will weaken the growth in the short term. But at the same time it will strengthen the credibility of the country. And once you earn back the credibility, the growth will follow, as we have seen in Ireland, for instance, or in Latvia, especially,” The New York Times quoted Katainen as saying during the conference.

The newspaper said that at the conference Latvia was cited as a good, and rare, example for its relatively quick recovery from the 2009 crisis.

„Sent reeling by the global financial crisis, Latvia was rescued with a 7.5 billion euros bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund in 2009. Mr. Drombovskis took office in February of that year and promptly slashed the budget, causing a sharp contraction in the economy. He refused to devalue the lats, the Latvian currency, and insisted on keeping the peg to the euro — which the country still hopes to join in 2014 — and using wage cuts and deflation to lift competitiveness. Since then, the country has rebounded, and in the last quarter of 2011 gross domestic product grew 5 percent, the fastest rate in the European Union,” The New York Times wrote.

“We did most of our adjustment in 2009, right in the middle of the crisis, but that’s also the time when people understand that it’s a crisis and you need to act,” Dombrovskis said in the interview to the New York Times.

At the same time, the Latvian government prolonged unemployment benefits, raised the minimum welfare allotment and created a temporary work program that found jobs for more than 100,000 people. All that was “not so terribly expensive,” relative to the cuts being made and helped maintain public support, Dombrovskis told the newspaper.

“In a sense, it was also important as a signal to say: O.K., we do all this austerity, we do all these wage cuts, we do all those tax raises and we lay off people in the public sector, and so on and so on. But at the same time, we also take care of those most affected by the crisis,” the Latvian prime minister said.

Despite Latvia’s progress, Dombrovskis is worried that the recession across most of Europe is dragging his country down again. Latvia has already reduced its growth forecast twice for this year, to 2 percent from an initial 4 percent. “It’s basically because of the euro zone crisis,” he told The New York Times.

Several high-ranking EU officials, including European Commission Vice-President Olli Rehn and Jörg Asmussen, a member of the European Central Bank ’s Executive Board, used their attendance of the conference in Finland to renew stern public warnings against backsliding on budget-cutting commitments, despite the deepening sense of recessionary gloom that had been exacerbated by rising oil prices, the newspaper wrote.

See Cardiff Business Club information here and Western Mail article here

The first Consular Association Executive Committee Meeting of 2012 took place place at the offices of the European Commission on Wednesday 18th January 2012 at 4.30pm pror to members of the Consular Association attending the reception given by the Commission to celebrate the Denmark’s 2012 EU presidency

In celebration of the Danish EU Presidency the Danish String Quartet will play in Cardiff on Monday 9 January 2012.

The concert will take place at the Senedd and will be attended by the Ambassador of Denmark, H.E. Anne Hedensted Steffensen.