今天是我們代表譚敬南在荷蘭辦事處任職的最後一天。他與辦事處和台灣早在30年前便結下深厚的緣分。而在過去的五年裡，譚代表更是帶領辦事處與政府、企業、學界等各領域的台灣、荷蘭夥伴，創造一次又一次精采的雙邊合作。這段共同努力的時光會一直留在我們心中！
他和家人特別寫下深刻感言致給台灣和辦事處。我們也誠摯祝福他在未來的道路上一帆風順、闔家安康、願很快再相見！
"Today is my last day as director of the Netherlands Office Taipei. It has been a pleasure and an honour of a lifetime having had the opportunity to work for NLOT for almost exactly five years -- the same office where I started my career more than thirty years ago.
As a team, we have been able to do a lot, establishing ever closer cooperation between the Netherlands and Taiwan in the economic and innovation domain, in areas such as water management, offshore wind, circular economy and of course, semi-conductors, cyber security and agriculture. And not to forget last year’s Jubilee Year 1624-2024 when marked the first encounter between the Netherlands and Taiwan 400 years ago by participating in the Taipei International Book fair with a national pavilion, organizing a Gala Dinner and various academic seminars on the joint history Taiwan and the Netherlands share and closing off with a grand finale lighting up Taipei 101 in orange.
And let’s not forget the various projects and activities that we have rolled-out as part of our office’s culture and public relations programme -- our annual participation in the Taipei Pride springs to mind here. Also, over the past few years, in terms of admin, consular affairs & operations our office has been running like a veritable "clockwork orange".
So allow me to thank all of our partners and interlocutors with whom I have had the pleasure to work over the past five years: from government, the private sector, cultural circles as well as civil society -- you know who you are! And of course, a big shout out and an even bigger thank you to the team at NLOT: without their passion, hard work and creativity we would not have been able to build the track record that I am so proud of.
My family and myself will leave Taiwan with sadness in our hearts but at the same time also filled with gratitude that our six-year old's first childhood memories will be of this beautiful island and its truly wonderful people.
So let me say goodbye on behalf of all three of us with the words Vera Lynn so famously sang some 80-odd years ago: “….I know we’ll meet again some sunny day….”
