Message from the Executive Director July 2022

Dear Members and Friends,

I am pleased to introduce you to a new team member in this edition of our newsletter who has started at the Chamber to help us with administration and to put a stronger focus on STCC events. Ms Ingon (Ing) Chichaiyang is the new Administrative and Events Coordinator. You can find her introduction below in another article of the newsletter.

With travel going relatively smoothly for the first time in two years, I am pleased to hear that many of you will be spending the summer break travelling to Europe and catching up with family and friends. As usual, there will be no stand-alone STCC event in July. However, I would like to draw your attention to the upcoming 1st of August celebration that the Swiss Society Bangkok is hosting at the Swiss Embassy on 30 July. Don’t miss this opportunity to link up with the Swiss community and to enjoy some Swiss delicacies. I look forward to seeing many of you there!

Not only will many of our members be in Switzerland during the summer break, but also our Ambassador Helene Budliger Artieda will take up her new post as State Secretary at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO on 1 August, for which I would like to take this opportunity to thank her. It has been a very difficult time, but thanks to her support we have nevertheless been able to achieve great successes, such as a new office on the Embassy premises and the resumption of the FTA negotiations between Thailand and EFTA. I am excited to see what she will achieve in her new position and wish her all the best!

In this context, I am also pleased that her successor has already been chosen. Pedro Zwahlen, until recently Head of Mission in Canberra, has been appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Thailand, the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Lao People's Democratic Republic and will reside in Bangkok. We hope to welcome him here in Thailand soon and organise a big welcome event to introduce him to the Swiss-Thai business community.

With this I wish you a happy summer break and look forward to connect with you again soon! Safe travels!

David Stauffacher

Executive Director