Reception held to mark Swiss National Day

Speakers hailed Pakistan-Switzerland ties at the 727th National Day of the Swiss confederation celebrated at a hotel on Tuesday evening.

Junaid Shah, interim minister for sports and culture, Government of Sindh, hailed the ties as excellent and in this regard mentioned the Swiss collaboration with the provincial government in the field of education and training.

In passing, he also mentioned the way Switzerland was taking to cricket and said that he was very pleased to have recently seen people playing cricket on ice in Saint Moritz, Switzerland, during a recent visit there.

Swiss Ambassador to Pakistan Thomas Kolly, who had flown in from Islamabad for the occasion, traced the history of Swiss evolution into the present state, starting off with just three cantons. “We have no natural resources and our only resource is our people,” a tribute to the dedication to the country and the tenacity of purpose the people of Switzerland were imbued with, he said.

As regards Pakistan, he said that it was a beautiful country with lots of diversity, something that had a beauty all its own. He said that the commonality between both the countries was the idyllic scenery and the lofty mountains. Of course, he acknowledged that Pakistan’s mountains were much higher.

He highlighted the economic cooperation between the two countries manifest in the large number of Swiss companies that had their operations in Pakistan. Philippe Crevoisier, consul-general of Switzerland in Karachi, hailed the role of the Swiss companies in Pakistan as also the role of Switzerland in Pakistan’s education and training sector and named the Pak-Swiss Technical Training Institute in Karachi. The function was attended by the prominent citizens of the town, including the intellectual elite and the media elite.