Foreign Minister of Nicaragua to visit Finland

Press release 233/2007
2 November 2007

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos will visit Finland on 5–6 November, at the invitation of Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen. The ministers will discuss commercial and economic relations between Finland and Nicaragua as well as the two countries’ development cooperation and cooperation between the European Union and Central America. Also on the agenda is the state of emergency in Nicaragua, owing to hurricane Felix and the flooding caused by prolonged heavy rains.

In addition, Minister Santos will meet with Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva and will hold political talks within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The programme also includes a visit to the Finnish Parliament and to the opening of an exhibition of Nicaraguan ceramics.

Nicaragua is one of Finland’s main partner countries for development cooperation assistance. Finland gives Nicaragua direct budget support and provides assistance in three cooperation sectors; rural development, the health sector and municipal administration. In total Finnish support to Nicaragua in 2007 amounts to 13.5 million euros.

Finland has donated 200,000 euros in aid to the victims of hurricane Felix, distributed through the UN’s World Food Programme. Besides this, about 210,000 euros from the rural development project included in Nicaragua’s development cooperation programme has been allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for reconstruction purposes. FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, will probably be chosen as the implementer.

Additional information: Marja Luoto, the Finnish Ambassador to Managua, tel. +505 8508671, and First Secretary Emmi Oikari, Unit for Latin America and the Caribbean, tel. +358 9 1605 6584