I attended the GEO Colloquium last week. The guest speaker was Honorable
Harry A.C. Van Woerden. He is the executive director of the Netherlands Foreign
Investment Agency (NFIA) Korea. The topic of the colloquium is ‘Stepping Stone
to European Business’. He explained issues pertaining to world business and global
leadership. Harry engaged students and asked them: “What should we do?”.
After I listened to the colloquium, I searched about NFIA
and visited NFIA homepage to further understand the topic, ‘Stepping stone to
European Business’. There, it explains the best strategic position and
discusses about the subject: ‘Why invest in Holland’ in Europe”. It also
discusses about the international business management environment. Before I
investigated Holland, things I know about that country only include the tulip
and windmill. But, after I studied about that country, I realized that Holland holds
a very strong strategic position in Europe. What is interesting is that Holland
is not only located in central Europe, it has excellent social overhead capital
facilities. These are some of the reasons, why the speaker suggests that
Holland gives potential investors a business advantage.
I remember the speaker also mentioned about the position of
Korea in Asia. As he says, Korea is located in the center of East Asia, between
China and Japan. It is similar to Holland. So Korea can be the ‘Stepping stone
to Asian Business’. I totally agree with this. Now, Korea also prepares Korean
investment for international business. Asia is very big continent. Asia is a
big business place. And Korea is the center of East Asia. It has a thriving
economy. I really hope Korea is as active as Holland, becoming a major hub in
Asia.
It is actually my first time to participate in an English
speaking colloquium. The colloquium format is very unfamiliar for me. But, Honorable
Harry A.C. Van Woerden’s speech made the atmosphere very pleasant. I think
Honorable Harry A.C. van Woerden is a good speaker. He made a lot of eye
contact with the audience. Even if the topic is difficult, he tried to deliver
his speech properly. Amazingly, he sometimes used Korean in his speech. It
makes an amicable atmosphere all throughout. I think the best speaker has to
prepare contents of speech and consider the response of the audience. If the speaker
doesn’t care about audience and does not make enough contact with them, they
will be very bored and uninterested in his speech. So I was so impressed with his
speech.
I experienced Colloquium for the first time. I learned a lot
about global business and more so about the speaker’s attitude and EnglishJ. I enjoyed the colloquium
and it helped me to improve my English. Thanks to the colloquium. I look
forward to future colloquiums that Catholic University of Korea will organize.
