Düsseldorf (dpa/lnw) - North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) is traveling to the neighboring country on Monday for his inaugural visit to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. In addition, political talks with the Dutch Minister for Climate and Energy, Rob Jetten, and an audience with the Dutch King Willem-Alexander are on the agenda, as the NRW state government announced.
Before the visit, Wüst emphasized that North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands are close friends and have a proven partnership. "The potential of this neighborhood must be optimally exploited, especially in view of the current world situation, and further intensified in core topics such as energy." The connection of North Rhine-Westphalia to the liquid gas terminals in the Netherlands is of great importance for the most populous federal state. "We are grateful to our neighbors that the delivery capacities of the pipelines are being fully utilised," said Wüst.
According to the state government, the Netherlands is the most important trading partner for North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2021, the value of all imports from the Netherlands to North Rhine-Westphalia was around 48.2 billion euros, while goods worth 22.7 billion euros were exported to the Netherlands from North Rhine-Westphalia.
