LEGAZPI CITY, Oct. 2 (PNA) — The provincial government of Albay is now 100-percent ready for the hosting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in December, a top Department of Foreign Affairs official said Thursday.
The province is at the forefront of the upcoming APEC summit as the biggest opening salvo will be done here, Ambassador Ma. Angelina M. Santa Catalina, DFA deputy director general for conference management service, said.
“There are 98 preparatory meetings but 26 of these meetings are major events and two meetings will be done in Albay,” she said in an interview at the Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office.
The APEC summit opening is slated on Dec. 8-9 wherein 21 economic ministers will be coming to Albay.
Santa Catalina was in Albay on Wednesday to assess the preparation of the provincial government.
She said that for every meeting, they will conduct a dry-run two months before the official event.
Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro, Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council chair and Office of Civil Defense regional director, is the concurrent head for APEC security management.
It’s all systems go for the 2015 APEC in Bicol as the provincial government is all set for the biggest event here, Alejandro said.
“Even a Mayon eruption will not hamper our hosting of the APEC summit because we’re long prepared unless a typhoon like ‘Glenda’ will take place; that’s the only time that it will hinder the event,” he said.
A few months ago, Albay Governor Joey Sarte Salceda worked hard for the hosting of the 2015 APEC Summit in 2015 in Albay to showcase the province, specifically Legazpi City as the booming city in Luzon outside Manila.
“It’s time to paddle our canoe together towards its destiny and its destination — greater social prosperity and economic progress. Albay is putting our best foot forward to gain APEC hosting rights to promote economic growth and our unique tourism hub in the country with incomparable icon in the world –the Mayon Volcano,” Salceda said.
The APEC is a forum of 21 member-economies that include the Philippines, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam.
The 21 Pacific Rim countries (member-economies) that seek to promote free trade and economic cooperation throughout the Asia-Pacific region established the APEC in 1989 in response to the growing interdependence of Asia-Pacific economies and the advent of regional trade blocs in other parts of the world.
The host of the meeting rotates annually among the member-economies, and this time, the Philippines, through the provincial government of Albay led by Salceda, offered to host the 2015 summit to be done in Oriental Hotel and at the world-class luxury island in Misibis Bay, Cagraray Island in Bacacay town.
The Philippines first hosted an APEC leaders’ summit in 1996 or almost eight years ago.
“Albay, facing the Pacific Ocean, is the most strategic and ideal host of the APEC summit being “truly the only Pacific province of the Philippines,” according to Salceda, who also chairs the Bicol Regional Development. (PNA)