The Establishment of UN Fisheries Training Programme in Iceland

Signing Ceremony for the Agreement of Cooperation on the Establishment of UN Fisheries Training Programme in Iceland
Address by Mr. Halldór Ásgrímsson, Minister for Foreign Affairs
June 3, 1997


Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to welcome you to this signing ceremony of the Agreement of Cooperation between my Government, the Icelandic Marine Research Institute and the United Nations University on the establishment of a Fisheries Training Programme in Iceland.

Especially, I would like to welcome Mr. Heitor Gurgulino de Souza, Rector of the UN University in Tokyo, who has joined us here in Iceland to sign the Agreement and thus be present when this important Training Programme is launched. It is a gesture which we appreciate very much.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank Mr. de Souza for his support during the preparations for the new Programme and for his longtime support of UNU Geothermal Programme which was started in Iceland 1979.

Later this summer, Mr. de Souza will end his term of office as Rector after many successful years at the helm of the UN University. On behalf of my Government I would like to thank him for the splendid cooperation and the friendship he has demonstrated towards Iceland. I wish him all the best in the future.

The cooperation with the UN University, first through the Geothermal Programme and now through the Fisheries Programme, has and will enable us to contribute to the education of many scientists and thus to the development of several countries. This international cooperation has been of great value to the Icelandic institutions and scientists involved.

I also would like to use this opportunity to thank those, both here in Iceland as well as from the UNU, who were engaged in the preparations for the establishment of the Fisheries Programme. They have laid the foundation for a fruitful and successful programme in the future. The new programme demonstrates that governments, scientists and the private sector work in harmony towards the same goals: creating a vigorous fishing industry built on scientific research, sustainable utilization of marine stocks, technologically advanced processing and free market. It Is important that the living resources of the oceans are a major source of living which should be utilized in a sensible way in order to enhance the world}s food security.

Thank you.