Swedish ambassador Ms. Eva Zetterberg visited Patagonia Virgin together with a select Swedish delegation on October 11th, 2011, as a special guest of Patagonia Virgin Frutillar, in a series of exchanges between Chile and various developed countries.

During her stay in Frutillar, Ms. Zetterberg attended several conferences and participated in many activities in order to become familiar with the tourism situation and the potential of the aquaculture industry in the area, and well as with other natural resources with potential in southern Chile.

The Ambassador is the first foreign authority to visit Patagonia Virgin. For us it was a truly great experience, in which we could show her the archaeological, geological, ethnic and cultural aspects of the region, as well as the influence of German colonization in the mid-nineteenth century.

Distinguished professor and geologist Mario Pino, Director of the Earth Sciences Institute at the Universidad Austral de Chile, led a detailed conference on the historic discovery of Monte Verde, which is dated from 14,500 years B.C. and situated near Puerto Montt on the banks of the Chinchihuapi river. Also attending this event was the governor of the 10th region, Mr. Juan Sebastián Montes, who addressed the audience, giving a macroeconomic and social view of the region. Other attendees included the Regional Director of CORFO, Mr. Juan de Dios Carvajal, regional authorities and authorities from Frutillar. The Ambassador gave a warm speech about economic activity between Chile and Sweden, highlighting how admired her country is for having so many issues in common. Because of this there is great commercial potential between our two countries and between both nations and South America and the Baltic countries.

Ms. Zetterberg also announced the upcoming visit to Sweden of the Mayor of Santiago, who together with the President of Patagonia Virgin will travel to Stockholm in the coming weeks, visiting sustainable energy industries and educational, health and environmental institutions, searching for solutions applicable in Chile's capital as well as in the country's regions, in particular Chilean Patagonia, due to its similarity to Sweden.

She also confirmed the visit of our President Sebastián Piñera to Stockholm next January.

Swedish and Nordic cooperation with the Chilean community is very important, since we have similar geographic situations and resources, as well as similarly small populations.

Aspects of these countries worthy of imitation are their quality of life, outdoors sports, love and respect for nature and the environment, as seen in tourism industries and sustainable natural resources industries. This adds significant value to their developed economies and is why Nordic countries today are not involved in the situation currently affecting most of Europe. They have seen technological advances in all areas, maintaining a comfortable 5% GDP growth and ensuring that their currencies are currently some of the strongest in the world

e Swedish ambassador spent a wonderful southern night with guests of Patagonia Virgin in the house of its headquarters in Frutillar, dating from 1856.

The next day she toured Patagonia Virgin with the Expedition guides, and partook in a Patagonian barbecue, a city tour and a magnificent violin concert in the Lake Theater..