Italy’s new Ambassador Marilina Armellin presents credentials to President Alvi

Celina Ali

Islamabad: Italy’s new Ambassador to Pakistan Marilina Armellin on Thursday presented here credentials to President Dr Arif Alvi.

Speaking to Ambassador Marilina Armellin, the President highlighted the need to further enhance bilateral trade between the two countries.

He said that Italian investors should benefit from the investment opportunities under the Special Investment Facilitation Council in various sectors.

He mentioned that the Pakistani diaspora in Italy was playing an important role in the development of Italy and was acting as a bridge between the two countries.

He also asked the ambassador to help in expediting the issuance of visas to Pakistani students.

Marilina Armellin holds impressive credentials. Born in Conegliano (Treviso), in 1971, Ambassador Armellin graduated in international and diplomatic sciences at the University of Trieste and entered a diplomatic career in 1996.

Her first position at the Farnesina was in the Directorate General for Cultural Relations. In 1999 she became the first vice consul in Basel, where she was confirmed first as vice consul and then as consul.

In 2001 she became first secretary in Nairobi, where she remained until 2005, when she returned to Rome to the General Directorate for Italians Abroad and Migration Policies.

In 2011, Marilina Armellin was first councilor at the Permanent Representation to International Organizations in Geneva. Four years later she left Switzerland for the USA: she was first councilor in Washington DC.

Since September she was also accredited to the Organization of American States OAS, as a permanent observer, with the title and rank of Ambassador.

In 2019 she was back at the Farnesina, reporting directly to the Director General for Globalization and Global Issues. At the end of that year she was also appointed Special Envoy of the Ministry for the Caribbean countries. In the same Directorate, since 2020 she was Central Director for the Latin American Countries, a position that she left for Pakistan.

“Proud to represent Italy in Pakistan, a land with a thousand-year history and a future full of opportunities and challenges, in a strategic region for global balances. I will leverage the consolidated bilateral relations and the Pakistani community in Italy, the largest in the European Union, and its many entrepreneurs, workers and students to exploit even more intensely the growth potential of our relations”, said the Ambassador in an arrival statement.