Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure for me to welcome all of you today in the name of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. We are delighted that we have the honour of receiving you here in the Senate Guest House, and I hope that you will sense our sincerity.
Your native cities could hardly be farther away from our own but this distance only exists in miles or kilometres, and not in our relationships with one another. In Europe, we like to say that the world is getting smaller. But what we really mean is that we know more and more about one another. And this is a good thing.
In fact, all ten member states of ASEAN are well known to the people of Hamburg, not least because, as a result of the worldwide tourism emanating from Europe, none of them is impossible to get to any more: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, as well as Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Over 600 million inhabitants, more than the population of the European Union, make the region into a significant player, to use the term that is common in the business world.
And we have many shared interests. We know that many European nations place great importance on topics like the green technologies of the future, renewable energies, low-emission transport, and energy-efficient construction and technology.
You would like to see greater collaboration in these areas and so do we here in Europe and Germany, for these are the top future-oriented growth fields, also with regard to the demographic, climatic and general ecological challenges we are facing.
Special opportunities are also offered by mechanical and plant engineering, as well as by the chemical industry. The question of how we travel now and how we will do so in the future, how we transport merchandise, and what fuels will be sustainably available to us for this purpose is of fundamental importance on both sides of our double continent. I consider the ASEAN region to be a key partner for Hamburg in this as well.
We are even directly connected with certain places: The Port of Singapore, for example, is practically just a stop away from our Port of Hamburg and is one of its three most important trade partners. Malaysia is one of the top ten trade partners of the Port of Hamburg. Overall, one can say that our relationships with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has become increasingly close during the past years and decades. We want to continue to deepen and expand these relationships, for we will all benefit from this. After all, we are also deepening the channels of the River Elbe as a means to this end, no matter how arduous a process this may be.
For the City State of Hamburg, trade relations have always represented a path toward cultural exchanges, too. In the 12th century, merchants in the North Sea and Baltic Sea states joined forces and established an alliance to protect themselves against the dangers facing them on trade journeys. Returning from their travels to Hamburg, they not only brought back valuable merchandise and raw materials, but equally valuable impressions and stories. The alliance they formed was the Hanseatic League. You can easily recognize how important it was to become in the development and culture of our city by the fact that we still bear its name as the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg .
You are here today as delegates of an association of nations that jointly represents the interests of your countries much as the Hanseatic League did back then. We all know that it takes a lot of work to unite many different interests and opinions under a single umbrella. You are naturally also well aware of the challenges that have faced the European Union again and again and that continue to face it and this is the alliance that may have served, among others, as a model for your own association.
One of our most noble tasks is that of ensuring a fair balance of interests. We need workable solutions for the day-to-day challenges of free trade, free movement of goods, and free flow of information. We need security, not only in our countries, but also for the international trade routes.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
When I use the word security, I mean this in a broader sense as well. The world is not experiencing a period of peace at present. We are worried and I believe this is true for everyone present about what the future will hold in a number of regions. It is natural for every country to take its own path, often a winding one. In the course of history, this is not unusual. Nations fail, dictators fall, are exiled or even put to death, new political forces emerge, and not all of them are lasting.
The difference is that by now we have learned how much we need each other if we are to maintain peaceful relations and calmly pursue our day-to-day objectives.
All of this affects us in both minor and major matters. And this is why, above all, we need to understand the thoughts and objectives of our counterparts. The Hanseatic merchants understood this, and the stories they brought home with them sparked the curiosity of the people of Hamburg and deepened their understanding of the many cultures of the world. Confederations like yours, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, give us the contact points and the sources we need, and I would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks for your work.
I am aware that your Excellencies have your residences in our federal capital, Berlin, and I do not know how familiar each of you already is with Hamburg. I have already mentioned the Port, which you will be visiting and which serves as an economic motor of this city. It is the second largest harbour in Europe and a key logistics centre for the entire continent. But the Port is also a cultural driving force for our city, because it has always connected us to the world and has contributed a great deal to the cosmopolitan mindset of the people of Hamburg. The fact that Hamburg has become such an important location for consulates most certainly has to do with this attitude and with the Port itself, as it has to do with the fundamental economic significance of our city.
But Hamburg is much more than this. Our city is an important centre for science and culture in Germany. We have a great university and a fantastic theatre landscape, and we are a venue for the German creative scene. This is a city with a very high quality of life and, if one may believe the surveys, one with very happy people. By the way, if you do not mind my mentioning this, the Inter-City Express train schedule says that we are only 99 minutes from Berlin. So it just might be worth taking the time on a Sunday to come from Berlin to attend a performance at a Hamburg theatre.
More than all of the other things I could mention about Hamburg, however, there is one value that will truly define the backbone of my city: reliability. We are proud of the fact that one can truly count on the word of a Hamburg businessman. This was true at the time of the Hanseatic League, and it is still or again true today. In no way do I want to deny that Hamburg was also influenced by wrong twists and turns of the 20th century and did not always resist them.
Today Hamburg wants to continue to be a reliable partner to you in both economic and cultural exchanges. We welcome you as guests, but we also welcome you as partners. We wish you every conceivable success as individual states as well as a community of nations, but we also do so because we naturally look forward to profiting from your strength and to sharing in your successes.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In your countries, you are faced by differing challenges. From Hamburgs perspective, we can say that the free movement of merchandise, the free flow of information, and cultural exchange have always helped us to overcome the challenges we have faced. We are certain that our relationships will become even stronger in the future and that the distances seen on the map between our countries will shrink as we become closer to one another. I am very pleased and grateful that we have been able to take another small step in this direction today.
We hope that you will feel more than welcome in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. I am looking forward to speaking with you and to helping you to get to know our city better. I have no doubt that you will find many interesting things to see and experience here. Many thanks.
Es gilt das gesprochene Wort.