On 9th and 10th of March, the EU-ABC was in Manila for meetings with the EU Commission, ASEAN Economic Ministers and their annual flagship event – the ASEAN-EU Business Summit 2017 – organised in collaboration with the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and the ASEAN Business Advisory Council. A press conference was held over lunch to announce the following updates from the Business Council:

1) The EU-ABC welcomes the announcement of formal discussions for the establishment of a framework for an EU-ASEAN region-to-region Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Businesses located in the EU and ASEAN have vested interest in the eventual conclusion of a FTA between these two complementary trading blocs.

2) The EU-ABC launched a recommendation paper commenting on the latest AEC 2025 Consolidated Strategic Action Plan (CSAP) recently released in February. Recommendations in three key areas were presented, namely physical and financial infrastructure, trade facilitation, and human capital. Our recommendation paper can be found here.

3) The EU-ABC announced the launch of our third Business Sentiment Survey in ASEAN. This survey, conducted in conjunction with the EuroChams in SEA, aims to understand European Businesses sentiment across the region, and use the results to develop meaningful recommendations for challenges facing ASEAN moving forward. This year’s survey follows on from the previous successful surveys in 2015 and 2016, which surveyed generally optimistic outlooks for the region. The 2017 survey can be accessed here. Previous reports can be found here.

The full list of official press releases can be found here.