I would like to send my best wishes for a Happy 2009 to all Malaysians and to all foreign workers in Malaysia.

I am an Italian and I have spent five wonderful years of my life in Malaysia. Malaysia has given me a family.

I have been working hard, elbow-to-elbow with all my Malaysians colleagues. I also met many foreign workers, especially from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia. I thank them for giving Malaysia the opportunity to be a competitive country.

All these workers have given a chance for the many small Malaysian enterprises to survive today in tough markets and the foreign workers has contributed, sometimes with his life, to the construction of roads and buildings all over Malaysia.

The foreign workers have invested their lives in working far from their country, something like when a company decides to build their factory in a foreign country. The same it has been for many Malaysians whose forefathers came from India or China.

They all contributed to what Malaysia is today and to what the world is today. Yes! Because today, the greatest power of this world, the US, whose flag inspired the Jalur Gemilang , has a president whose father came from a foreign country.

I hope one day there will be a day on the calendar to celebrate ‘Foreign Workers Day’.

I would like to close my letter with another sweet memory I have about the time I spent in Malaysia.

One day, I was driving my car along a road in Penang.

The weather was so hot that I decided to refresh myself with some rojak . I stopped along the road where there was this old lady, On the back of her motorbike, she had different type of fruits.

She prepared for me a wonderful rojak that I enjoyed so much that I will never forget it!. She asked me where I came from. I told her and she greeted me with in this way:

‘Welcome to Malaysia. I wish you a pleasant stay and hope you enjoy our food’.

I've been struck by her words ever since, and I will never forget them. She made me feel like a president coming to visit a foreign country! I don't know her name, but I wish her a prosperous life!