Her Majesty Grants Audience To Canadian Diplomat's Wife
By Sobrina Rosli

Bandar Seri Begawan - Her Majesty Pengiran Anak Hajah Saleha binti Al-Marhum Pengiran Pemancha Pengiran Anak Haji Mohamed Alam consented yesterday to grant an audience to the spouse of the new Canadian High Commissioner, Mrs Giovanna Battel, at the Istana Nurul Iman.

Last month His Royal Highness Prince (General) Haji AlMuhtadee Billah, the Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister's Office, granted an audience to the new Canadian High Commissioner, Leopold Alfred Battel, who has taken the place of Paul Lau.

Holding a Masters in Political Science from the University of Ottawa, his past posts included being the International Trade Development Officer- of the Northern Europe Division and Deputy Director of Export Financing Division.

Brunei and Canada have ignited trade and diplomatic ties through education, defence, trade and investment, human capacity building and InfoCommunications Technology (ICT). Both governments, business people, students, academics and others have worked to bring the two nations closer since Brunei's independence in 1984. Canada and Brunei have also worked alongside each other in many international arenas such as the Commonwealth, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Examples of Canada's involvement in Brunei is the ICT sector where a Canadian company has installed its retail software in all Brunei Shell Marketing's gasoline stations, as well as a company providing remote wireless communications to the country's remote areas. They are also assisting in the capacity building of Bruneian youths through education and trainings as well as the practice of ICT through E-government and E-education. In terms of defence, some of the Bruneian Air Force officers have undertaken training courses with the Royal Canadian Forces.

In education, Canada and Brunei have forged links with some educational institutions such as the University of Windsor, University of Calgary and Dalhousie University having twinning programmes with the Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) in the biotechnological and medical courses.

Increasing potentials of Canada's involvement are seen in financial services, defence and security products, forestry and agriculture.-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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