It was a lovely evening with perfect weather and a nice, cool breeze when 59 people gathered at the Danish Embassy on Thursday 12th of March for the Danish-Thai Chamber of Commerce’s Annual General Meeting. The meeting was as usual held in the beautiful Embassy garden followed by a sumptuous dinner.
Chairman of the meeting Poul Weber opened the meeting at 6pm and gave the word to the President.
President Peter Rømhild reported on all the Chamber activities in the past year and expressed how satisfied he is that 25 new members have joined the Danish Chamber. He also asked people to come up with ideas to make the Chamber even stronger.
“We need input from our members. Maybe you have ideas for events or know interesting people who can talk at our breakfast meetings. Don’t forget the Chamber is here for the members,” he said. He also hoped to get more interaction on the website.
After that it was time to go through the accounting report for 2008. Søren Presmann told that there was a total profit of 121.000 baht last year. Some of the profit came from the Royal River Cruise. DTCC will not raise the membership fee, Instead the plan is to create more events to get more income.
A whole new board
This year’s election of board members was a bit unusual since five board members through several years had to resign for various reasons. The Chamber nominated five new members and as no candidates were proposed from the floor no secret ballot had to take place.
The outgoing members:
Allan Jensen, Henrik Friis,
Ytt Phrabha, Thomas Gullacksen and Charlotte Fung Korff.
The new members are:
Charnchai Charuvastr from Aviva Décor Ltd.
Mai Ellegaard from Euro-Center (Thailand) Co. Ltd.
Thomas Lindy Sørensen from A.P. Møller – Mærsk
Thomas Nyborg from Pandora Production Co. Ltd.
Håkan Olsson from SAS- Scandinavian Airlines
Continuing members:
President Peter Romhild from Berli Jucker Public Co., Ltd.
Treasurer Søren Presmann from Presmann (Thailand) Co., Ltd.
Poul Skov Petersen from Firexpress
Palle Borgselius from Scanmach Asia Co., Ltd.
John Fotiadis from Tilleke & Gibbins International Ltd.
Robert Kronberg from PIRO Consulting Group
Eventful year
After the election the Danish ambassador, H.E. Michael Sternberg held a speech about the past year and the current situation.
The Danish ambassador also talked about the financial crisis that is also affecting Thailand.
“The tourist sector, car manufacture and textile will be hit. It is difficult times. We have more challenges and more reasons to work together in order to find out how Danish business can cope with the challenge,” he said.
He was very proud of the celebration of the 150 years of diplomatic relations between Denmark and Thailand and said the Embassy had had an excellent collaboration with the Chamber.
“The arrival of the Crown Prince Couple was the culmination of the events and many people will remember it,” he said.
After the AGM it was time for dinner. A delicious three course menu was provided by Dusit Thani and to dine in such a beautiful garden made this night another perfect AGM.
Members of the new DTCC Board present at the AGM was – from left: Thomas Nyborg, Robert Kronberg, Poul Skov Petersen, Peter Romhild, Soren Presmann, Hakan Olsson, Charnchai Charuvastr and John Fotiadis with Anne Gitte Rugaard and Mai Ellegaard seated in the foreground. Not present were Palle Borgselius, who had to leave, and Thomas Lindy Sorensen who could not attend the meeting.
