LJUBLJANA, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The Slovenian government has hailed successful its initiative for the UN to declare May 20 the World Honey Bee Day, the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) reported Wednesday.
A conference of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Wednesday in Rome, Italy, unanimously backed the Slovenia's initiative for the UN to declare May 20 the World Honey Bee Day.
Slovenian Agriculture Minister Dejan Zidan, who tweeted of the success said that Slovenia now awaits the green light from the General Assembly of the UN in December.
The minister believed that the initiative, which got under way since 2014, has a 95 percent chance of success in a tweeter message after he addressed the Rome meeting on the occasion.
According to the minister, the day could be first celebrated next year, with Slovenia hosting the world conference on honeybees a day before on May 19, 2018.
Zidan also stressed that honeybees and beekeeping were a field Slovenia excels at. It is one of the few fields where Slovenia can label itself a superpower, he said.
"Interestingly, today's debate is held in a time when FAO deals with climate change and an increase in hunger around the world," Zidan was quoted by the STA, adding that countries saw Slovenia's bid as a step towards reducing hunger.
Slovenia will now prepare a declaration and strive to get the countries which have backed the initiative to sign it, so that the World Honey Bee Day could be celebrated as early as next year, said the STA report.
