Bangkok, THAILAND – In this year’s APEC CEO Summit, President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr. of the Philippines underscored the key role of the government and the private sector in order to achieve APEC’s Putrajaya vision of an open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful Asia-Pacific Community by 2040. The President was joined by World Economic Forum Chairman Professor Klaus Schwab and PwC Global Chairman Robert Moritz in the session on “The Global Economy and the Future of APEC,” moderated by CGTN Anchor Ms. Tian Wei.

“APEC needs to immediately address structural and policy issues with the objective of enabling rapid economic recovery and growth in a manner that creates jobs, includes more people into the mainstream, and reduces poverty and inequality.”

President Marcos identified three issues that are critical to this effort – food security, health and climate change. Food security must be to top priority of all economies. According to the President, the issues that the world faces today, from climate change, to inflation to war were viewed by the ordinary Filipino through the lens of food security. Second, APEC must continue to reinforce global health systems, not only against new and emerging COVID variants, but also against other infectious diseases, as we could not afford another series of crippling lockdowns and restrictions to movement and travel, to business and the economy. Third is to address the most pressing existential challenge of our time, that is climate change. Current individual, multilateral and multinational targets and progress prove lacking and needs stronger commitments, more serious efforts and effective measures.

President Marcos expressed optimism in APEC’s ability to confront these issues and achieve it’s goals by leveraging its key strengths and values “as an incubator of cutting edge ideas, as a pathfinder for collaborative solutions to new and emerging trade issues, and as a laboratory for forward-looking and responsive trade and economic policies.” The President called on APEC to continue to build on its long-standing partnership with the private sector and be increasingly lockstep with the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), as this active engagement with the private sector is what makes APEC “unique, functional and important.”

The APEC CEO Summit is an annual conference featuring APEC Leaders and global experts on pressing issues affecting the region and the world. The Summit is being organized by every ABAC host – ABAC Thailand for this year, with the theme, “Embrace. Engage, Enable.”