Three staff leave the Danish Embassy

About a hundred close friends and embassy colleagues gathered at the Royal Danish Embassy on Wednesday evening, 16th of July, to bid Farewell to Mrs. Tove Wihlborg Andersen, Mr. Claus Mogensen and Mr. Jesper Vibe-Hansen.
The Ambassador Mr. Ulrik Helweg-Larsen addressed each one of them in a personal speech and wished them all the best of luck wherever they were going.
For Tove Wihlborg Andersen it was the end to fourteen and a half year at the embassy, he noted. At first she had been employed as local staff. Then she had been employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Copenhagen. Then she had been assigned head the consular section of the Royal Danish Embassy in Bangkok – a position she had held until leaving.
“A mutual friend has called you “an institution”. Tove is the embassy. She is extremely popular not only in the Danish community in Thailand but also among some Danish turists,” he said.
“In fact too popular if you ask me, – some of the people you get out of trouble and safely home to Denmark come back to see you again! We call then “residivisterne”.
“You are kind, but I have also seen you being tough – in fact very tough – with some people. And still they come back. It is my hope, that next time they come and they find out that you are gone, they will be so disappointed that they will not come back any more.”
For Mr. Claus Mogensen it was also his second term at the embassy, which was coming to an end.
“Claus has been in charge of the Danish involvement at AIT, our assistance to the Mekong Secretariat and especially our cooperation programme with Cambodia,” the ambassador noted.
“In fact, you have at times spent more hours in Cambodia than behind your desk at the embassy. You have become “Mr. Cambodia” to the extend, that if somebody goes to Cambodia and tells the cyclo driver, that they are from Denmark, chances are that he will ask you if you know Mr. Mogensen,” he said.
If Claus Mogensen had been good in spending money (in fact Mr. Mogensen had himself calculated the amount to half a billion Danish kroner) then Jesper Vibe-Hansen had been good at making them.
“You are young, enthusiastic and through hard work you have built up a good network in Thailand within your area of business. Due to your efforts, your successor will be able to harvest a lot in the future,” the Ambassador predicted.
When he arrived at the embassy the Danish food and agricultural export to Thailand was 150 mill. DKK. Last year it stood at 290 mill. DKK.
The three diplomats in turn thanked their friends and colleagues for all the good times they had spent together during their stay in Thailand and extended the hope that one day, they would meet again here or somewhere else.

About Gregers Møller

Editor-in-Chief • ScandAsia Publishing Co., Ltd. • Bangkok, Thailand

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