(April 25, 2017) "Thank you and your over 1500 students for your commitment to promoting our country in Japan!": This is what you read in a post posted on the Facebook page of the Italian Embassy in Japan, in which it is reported that our Ambassador Giorgio Starace has recently received the teachers of Italian language and culture from the Tokyo Institute of Culture. "The demand for learning the Italian language in Japan - reads on the website of the Embassy in the section dedicated to Italian Culture and Language - is very strong and accompanies a more general interest in our culture and our country. This has resulted in a significant increase in the number of students who devote themselves to the study of the Italian language, supported by the engagement of our Cultural Institutes and the initiatives of the media in this field." (Red)

ABOUT / GIORGIO STARACE

Giorgio Starace was born in Viterbo on February 23, 1959. After graduating from the Nunziatella military school in Naples, he graduated in Political Economy at Bocconi University in Milan in 1982. He entered a diplomatic career in 1985 and began his professional career at the Farnesina at the General Directorate for Economic Affairs. In 1988 he was assigned to Guatemala as secretary of commerce and subsequently served in Beijing as First Secretary. Returning to the Ministry in 1995, he first assumes the General Economic Affairs Directorate and is later appointed as Director for International Affairs of the Minister for Agricultural Policies. In 1999 he was First Counselor at the Permanent Representation of Italy to the United Nations in New York, which he held until 2002 when he moved to New Delhi to take up the same position at the Embassy. Returning to Rome in 2006, he serves again as the Minister of Agriculture Diplomatic Adviser. In 2008 he was promoted to the degree of Plenipotentiary Minister. In 2010 he was appointed Ambassador to Abu Dhabi where, since February 2014, he has been accredited also at the International Renewable Energy Agency. He returned to Rome to the General Directorate for Political Affairs and Security, in 2015 he was appointed Special Envoy for Libya of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. In 2016 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.