Holland is the European leader in ship building and Rotterdam is the biggest maritime port of the world.
The Defense Vice Minister of the Low Countries, Cees Van Der Knaap, will head the numerous delegation composed by authorities and businessmen that will arrive to Chile to participate at EXPONAVAL 2004. Holland has become the European leader in ship building. Only in year 2001 assembled and traded 111 vessels for different nations worldwide.
At the beginning of this year, the Chilean government approved the purchase of four used frigates, which gave their services to the Dutch Navy. They are two multipurpose frigates and two anti air frigates, which are in their modernization process of their systems and that, will be delivered from year 2005 onwards.
By the beginning of last September, the former Defense Minister Michelle Bachelet visited in La Haya the Dutch Defense Minister Henk Kamp, where she personally invited him together with that country Armed Forces in EXPONAVAL 2004.
The show will be held between November 30 and December 3, 2004, at the Navy Country Club, Las Salinas, Viña del Mar, and it is foreseen to be visited by 7,500 people, among which there will be senior officers of the Latin American Navies, Chief Officers of the Armed Forces, military attaches, government and public officials, contractors of the Latin American Defense area and also official delegations.
