 Today on our Ambassador Series we have Bob Tyson from Kuwait City. Welcome, Bob. Thanks for your time. Welcome, Bruce. So Australia and Kuwait established diplomatic relations in 1974. How would you describe their relationship? It's a strong and solid relationship with a considerable amount of substance, particularly in trade and investment but also in other sectors in the services and also in the defence sector where we share a broad commitment to stability across the region. So where are the best prospects for expansion in the future? Well, at present the trade relationship, which is worth about a billion dollars, is essentially motor vehicles, livestock, food products of various kinds. We can certainly expand that in my opinion through to include much more in the area of construction, infrastructure development, resource management, project management, tourism, more students. There's quite a lot of potential and for that purpose we're opening an AusTrade office in Kuwait in September this year. You mentioned student flows before. What's happening in the education relationship? Well, we have at this point about 1,500 tertiary students from Kuwait at Australian universities. That figure I'm sure can be expanded further. We do have approximately two or three times a year we have education open days in Kuwait for which purpose around 20 Australian universities attend. That is attracting more students and I think that figure can probably be doubled in due course. We also have other potential areas in the education sector, curriculum development. We could spend more time perhaps on training programs, on staff exchange. There are various options that have not yet been fully explored but it certainly is a growing area. There's a steady flow of Kuwaiti tourists to Australia. Are these numbers still rising? Yes they are. Partly because our visa system is much more user friendly than it was a few years ago. The numbers are still not large but in the thousands but they're growing quickly. Kuwaitis like coming to Australia. They like the Gold Coast as most people from the Gulf do. They also spread through areas beyond the Gold Coast and I think in their high value tourists and I think that those numbers will expand further especially if we spend a bit more money frankly on promotion than we do at present. Early on you mentioned the defence relationship. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? The defence relationship is strong and steady and really dates back I suppose to 1991 where we were members of the coalition that expelled Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait. Since then we've had an ongoing training program, not a large one but a significant one. An exchange program. We have Australian students every year at the Kuwaiti Staff College. We share as I mentioned a commitment to stability in the region. There's also a law enforcement component where we work together to counter terrorism across the region and I think and I expect that that relationship will continue. What two words would you choose to sum up the relationship between Australia and Kuwait? Well I think warm and substantial and if I could add some further words and I think there's a great deal of potential for further expansion and I confidently expect that the relationship will continue to grow. Thanks for your time Bob. That was Australia's Ambassador to Kuwait City, Bob Tyson.