50 leaders at Davos

THE meeting at Davos will see over 50 heads of state taking part, along with global business leaders, celebrities and prominent social activists.

“In his previous participation in various global fora, President Marcos has displayed an excellent ability to articulate the interests of the Philippines as well as the significant gains achieved under his administration and the country’s direction for future growth,” Romualdez noted.

In an interview during his flight bound for Switzerland, Marcos had told reporters that WEF presents an excellent opportunity to soft launch the Maharlika Investment Fund and promote the Philippines as an investment hub.

“We’ll talk about the Philippines, what the situation is as an investment destination. Now, added to that, we can talk about this sovereign wealth fund,” President Marcos explained when asked how he would introduce the MIF to the WEF participants.

“So, I will say exactly what happened: that we are forming a sovereign wealth fund for big investments in the basic areas such as agriculture, energy, digitalization, and climate change,” the President added.

The House of Representatives approved last December 16, 2022 House Bill (HB) No. 6608, creating the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) bill with the solid support of 90 percent or 282 of the 312 House members who were officially named as co-authors of the measure.

Romualdez, principal author of the measure, said HB 6088 includes adequate safeguard against possible abuse and fraud.

In the same interview, President Marcos bared that a new format adopted for the Davos meet this year opens a wider latitude to communicate the government’s effort to attract foreign investments into the county.

The President said the new WEF format is similar to that in the recent Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Thailand where he, along Schwab and other selected guests were given time to deliver a short speech and answered specific questions from the audience.

He noted that most of the time the best deals are done outside of the forum, in particular during “pull away” engagements where certain parties may conduct talks on the sidelines to discuss business opportunities.

“So we will have a lot of those because there are certain businessmen [attending the WEF], who our own business group want to engage,” President Marcos explained.