Foreign Minister Cassis Travels to Southeast Asia and Oceania
Published: Friday, Jul 28th 2023, 10:40
Aktualisiert am: Freitag, 13. Oktober 2023, 14:12
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Ignazio Cassis, the Swiss Foreign Minister, is making his first official visit to Australia and New Zealand. The ten-day visit will begin in Indonesia and Singapore and will focus on research and business. This visit follows the visits of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French President Emmanuel Macron to the same region. In Indonesia, Cassis will meet with his counterparts Retno Marsudi and Vivian Balakrishnan, as well as the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The visit will also focus on the recently established free trade agreement between Indonesia and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). In Singapore, Cassis will discuss research cooperation, as Switzerland is excluded from the European research program Horizon. He will also discuss the importance of the Southeast Asian economic region, the fifth largest in the world. In Australia, Cassis will meet with his counterpart Penny Wong and celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations with New Zealand. He will also meet with the Foreign Minister of Niue, a coral island in the South Pacific. The visit is a signal of Switzerland's growing interest in the Asia-Pacific region and its desire to strengthen diplomatic ties in the region. It is also an opportunity to strengthen ties with the Swiss expatriate community in Australia, which numbers around 26,000.
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