Opening Remarks - Bilateral meeting with the President of the Philippines

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Can I say thank you for engaging in this bilateral meeting and thank you for the informal engagement that we've had over now many, many days, going back to the East Asia Summit. It seems like it was a long time ago but it was only last week. Australia and the Philippines have such close relations. We have good economic ties, we have good people-to-people relations. I attended an APEC transport ministers' meeting many years ago in Manila when I was Transport Minister in the Rudd Government more than a decade ago, about 2010. But I certainly agree with you, Mr President, that this has been an extremely successful conference. We just adopted the Leaders' Statement. But also importantly, as well, we adopted the Bio-Circular Green Economy. That is so important. I noticed in your closing comments in the plenary session that there was a common theme that you and I had about taking action on climate change and that we need to deal with that. And I'm sure that we can have great cooperation arising through APEC but also bilaterally as well. And certainly my Government wants to be more engaged in Southeast Asia. We have a strategy for increased engagement to 2040. But we also have appointed a Special Envoy for Southeast Asia, Mr Nicholas Moore, who's a very prominent businessperson, he was the head of Macquarie Bank in Australia for a long while. And I think that could have some fruitful exercise with some more economic engagement and investment in each other's countries for our common interest. So I'm really very pleased to have engaged with you this week. I congratulate you on your election. Both of us are relatively new in our positions. But I look forward to working with you for many years ahead.