President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. had been invited by World Economic Forum (WEF) Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab to attend the forum in January 2023, the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) confirmed on Saturday, Nov. 12.

The WEF will be held in Davos, Switzerland from Jan. 16 to 20 next year, but there is no information yet from Malacañang if the President plans to attend.
“Schwab made the invitation in a breakfast meeting with President Marcos, commending the Philippine leader for the strong showing of the economy,” a statement from OPS said.
Marcos is currently in Phnom Penh to attend the 40th and 41st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits – his first as president of the Philippines.
House Speaker Martin Romualdez and Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual were also present during the meeting between Schwab and Marcos held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Phnom Penh.
Schwab said President Marcos should seriously consider participating in the upcoming Davos forum.
“Mr. Speaker I would formally recommend that he comes next year because he is a newcomer in the international scene and I know that the business community has a lot of thinking going on about how to reshape the international supply chains,” he said.
Scwab told Marcos that his attendance to the WEF “serves as a good opportunity to let the global business community know about the dynamism and positive developments happening in the Philippines in a bid to attract more investors.”
During the initial phase of the discussions, Romualdez cited the recent report of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) showing the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) exceeded expectations by posting a growth of 7.6 percent in the third quarter of this year.
The growth was largely driven by services and is much higher than the 6.1 percent median estimate of analysts polled by BusinessWorld and Bloomberg.
The economic expansion in the third quarter puts the Philippines second in growth in the Southeast Asian region, behind only Vietnam’s 13.7 percent.