Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Moha Borvor Thipadei Hun Manet will undertake an official visit to the Philippines from Feb. 10 to 11, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) announced.

In a statement, the PCO said President Marcos and Prime Minister Manet will have a bilateral meeting on Feb. 11 to discuss advancing cooperation in combatting transnational crimes, defense, trade, tourism, and regional and multilateral cooperation.

Marcos and Manet had their first bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 43rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta, Indonesia, on September 2023. The two raised the possibility of sourcing rice from Cambodia and further boosting commercial aviation between the two countries.

President Marcos likewise said the Philippines wanted to strengthen its relationship with Cambodia in food security, trade and commerce, and people-to-people exchanges.

They next met in Melbourne for the 50th ASEAN-Australia Special Summit where Marcos expressed the Philippines' desire to engage Cambodia in agricultural trade, specifically rice.

For his part, Manet said he likes to have follow-up discussions on connectivity and increasing the number of tourists from Cambodia to the Philippines and vice versa.

The leaders also discussed expanding flight connections for improved accessibility to premier tourism destinations and strengthening defense ties to address mutual security concerns.

There are more than 7,000 Filipinos currently living and working in Cambodia.