Estoy muy feliz de estar en Nicaragua. [I am very happy to be in Nicaragua.]

Señor Presidente, muchas gracias por su amable hospitalidad del Presidente Ortega. [Mr. President, thank you for your kind hospitality.]

Es un placer para mi realizar mi primer viaje a Nicaragua como Secretario General y estar en su hermoso pais. Muchas gracias. [It is a pleasure for me to make my first visit to Nicaragua as Secretary-General and see your beautiful country.]

I am delighted to make this official visit to Nicaragua. This my first stop during my official visit to this region.

Nicaragua is an important Member State of the United Nations and has been playing a very important role for peace and development for many important regional and global organizations, starting from the G77 and CELAC [Community of Latin America and Caribbean States] and ALBA [Bolivarian Alliance] and SICA [Central American Integration System].

I am confident my visit will be a great success and a very constructive one. I am looking forward to having a good discussion with His Excellency President Ortega on how the United Nations and Nicaragua can work together in promoting further peace and stability and sustainable development, regionally and globally.

I am also interested in Nicaragua’s forward-looking energy policy. I plan to visit a renewable energy project this afternoon with President Ortega.

Renewable energy is important to promoting sustainable development – this is the golden thread in achieving sustainable development in the social, economic and environmental areas. I thank the Nicaraguan Minister of Energy for participating as an advisory board member of my initiative, Sustainable Energy for All.

The United Nations, at the same time, is dealing with many crisis issues. I am just coming from my intensive negotiations for peace and stability in the Middle East. And we have many other crises in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Libya and Ukraine.

And at the same time, the United Nations is working very hard with Member States to promote sustainable development and also to achieve a climate change agreement by next year. These are all important priorities of the United Nations, and with all these common visions, I am looking forward to having a very good discussion with President Ortega.

I know that this year is a very important year for the Nicaraguan people and Government, and also I would like to highly commend the leadership of President Ortega for his commitment, not only to making this country, Nicaragua, prosperous, but working together with regional countries in this continent.

Again, I thank you very much for your hospitality.

Muchas gracias, Señor Presidente.