 Excellency, Acting Governor-General, please allow me before I start to express my sincere condolence for the death of Queen Elizabeth II. For generations of Swiss citizens, Queen Elizabeth has been the constant figure representing Great Britain and the Commonwealth. She will be remembered for her threatened fulfillment, her duty, up until her death with unwavering dedication. It's an honour for me to request your Excellency to accept, together with the letter of recall, of my predecessor the letters by which the Swiss Federal Council accredits me as Ambassador of Switzerland to St Lucia. I am strongly committed to fulfil my duty the best I can and allow me to express the hope that in doing so I shall be able to rely on the valuable support and confidence of your Excellency and of the authorities of St Lucia. My government follows with great interest the developments in your country and I have been charged to further enhance the excellent relations between our two governments and people. In another testimony of my government's interest and commitment to the region I am also accredited to CARICOM as the Swiss representative to the Caribbean community, another important responsibility that I am fulfilling to the best of my abilities. My country works relentlessly to develop friendly, respectful and mutually beneficial relations with other countries all over the world. In addition to the relations with our neighbours and partners in Europe, Switzerland's foreign policy priority focus on the alleviation of need and poverty in the world. The respect for human rights and democracy, the promotion of the peaceful coexistence of peoples as well as the conservation of natural resources. My country stands up for peace and security and is promoting a viable and just international order with the aim of achieving a world free of poverty and a global environment conducive to prosperity. We will continue working for peace, humanity, innovation, sustainable development and multilateralism. Indeed, the current global challenges show once again how important cooperation at the international level is. In that sense, I can assure you that Switzerland intends to remain a close and reliable partner to St. Lucia, both on the level of our bilateral relations as well as in the undertakings of multilateral collaboration. It is a most pleasant duty for me to convey to your excellency the highest esteem of the Swiss Federal Council for the People and Government of St. Lucia as well as its wishes for their happiness and well-being. I also will wail myself of this opportunity to convey to your excellency the assurance of my profound respect and expression of my best wishes for your personal happiness. Your Excellency, let me first and foremost thank you for the very kind sentence you have offered to go on the passing of Her Majesty the Queen. This talk will be passed on to His Majesty. Let me start your Excellency by assuring you that it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to St. Lucia and to accept the letters of credence by which your President, Ignacio Cassis, accredits you as Ambassador Designate to the Swiss Confederation to St. Lucia. These will be laid in due course before His Majesty the King. Your Excellency, since establishing diplomatic relations with your country in 2005, Switzerland has proved to be a most reliable partner in those areas where we share our small nation has had strong interests. A world without poverty for sustainable development is a shared vision between our people and one that we consider achievable where there is cooperation among like-minded members of the international community. However suffering from the malaise of size, it is difficult to achieve the critical mass that allows us to compete in an arena where GDP per capita has become the tool to ostracize small states like us from the low-cost development funding thus retarding our progress towards a comfortable degree of sustainability. Your visit today provides a launching pad allowing us an opportunity for discussions aimed at improving international interactions between our two countries. Your Excellency, there are several areas where my country can benefit from the wealth of knowledge Switzerland has acquired over the years starting with food security. We note the huge strides your country has made in the use of technology to increase agricultural yields even where soil quality is below standard. And we wish to explore the possibility of tapping into this area of expertise to aid in combating existing issues that we experience with production and yields in local agricultural sector. As the world appears to be approaching irreversible curve in the ability of the more developed to save the planet from the scourge of climate change more than ever, we are calling on countries like yours to support us in the call for lowering carbon emissions to tolerable levels so at least small island states like St. Lucia can survive. We note your country's commitment and progress in reducing its emissions with an overall emphasis on environmental protection. And perhaps in the spirit of goodwill we may seek your further support in meeting our national determined contribution guided by your expertise, technical solutions and final resources dedicated to such initiatives. Directly leading from this is the need to build expertise in disaster mitigation and management techniques domestically given our vulnerability to hurricanes, earthquakes. Instead of waiting for friends to come to our assistance, it is always comforting to be prepared. Your Excellency, we wish to commend your government for continuing to make available the Swiss government excellence scholarship for foreign scholars and artists. And in this vein we would like to explore opportunities to benefit from your country's scientific advances in areas such as forensic training including attachments at institutions and laboratories and scholarships to pursue academic technical programs in other disciplines a priority to us. Ever mindful of the advancement your country has made in health, any support you may give in this important sector would be highly cherished given our high rate of noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer and hypertension. Your Excellency, tourism has for many years superseded agriculture as the mainstay of our economy, putting us always on the lookout for new markets if we are to remain competitive within this jurisdiction. Therefore it would be timely for us to pursue plans with your government to create an enabling environment to allow the Swiss tourists to visit St. Lucia as an easily accessible destination. Given the visa-free access between our two countries, we can seek to capitalize on such an opportunity through increased marketing efforts along with buy-in by the international airline companies. Your Excellency, this has been a long list. Which we advance in the spirit of cooperation between our two nations. Knowing that my country will reciprocate in kind whenever and wherever possible. As the world now titters on the brink of war, let us lend our voices like we have done in the past, along with other like-minded nations in pursuit of everlasting peace. Not only for our time, but for all times. Finally Your Excellency, I wish you a rewarding tour of duty. Please convey to your President and the Government of your Confederation my very best wishes for continued harmony and prosperity. These wishes, I assure you, also come from the Government and people of St. Lucia.