President George Abela was yesterday presented with letters of credence by the ambassadors of the US, China, Netherlands and Egypt in separate ceremonies.

Mr Douglas W Kmiec, ambassador for the United States of America, Zhang Keyuan, Ambassador for the People’s Republic of China, Mr Robert Jan Gabrielse, ambassador for the Kingdom of Netherlands, and Mr Abdel Mawgoud Ahmed A El Habashy, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt, presented their letters of credence to Dr Abela in the Ambassadors’ Room at The Palace, Valletta.

US ambassador Douglas W Kmiec is a very well known academic in the US and can be described in short as a ‘thinker’. He served as Straus Distinguished Visiting Professor, Pepperdine, University School of Law, Malibu California between 1995 and 2001. He was then appointed Dean and St Thomas More Professor at The Law School of the Catholic University School of America, Washington, D.C. Subsequently to present date he became Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California.

Sources within the US embassy said that the new embassy that is being built in Ta’ Qali would be completed by autumn of 2010. In comments to the media, Mr Kmiec said that Malta is geographically ideally placed to continue tangible dialogue between religions and therefore is well-placed to reduce conflict. He is planning to keep up the hard work of his predecessor Molly Bordonaro in repatriating migrants to the US.

Chinese ambassador Keyuan became First Secretary within the Department of American and Oceanian Affairs in 1993 followed by a posting of Counsellor within the Chinese Embassy in the United States of America in 1995. Between 2001 and 2003 he became Minister-Counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in the USA. He was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of China to the Republic of Ghana in 2003 and to the Republic of Ireland in 2009.

In comments to The Malta Independent, Mr Keyuan said that he gave the best wishes of the Chinese President to the Maltese people.

“It is my honour to represent the People’s Republic of China in Malta and I will be doing my best to improve bilateral relations between the two countries even though we are already very close,” he said.

In the afternoon, The President and Mrs Abela hosted the newly accredited ambassadors to an official luncheon at San Anton Palace.