President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday said he achieved his “special purpose” during his three-day state visit here in Malaysia.
In a press briefing with the reporters, Marcos said he did more than what was expected to do as he brought home more than $200 million in investment pledges to the Philippines.
He added that he was able to revitalize the relations between the Philippines and the neighboring Southeast Asian nation as he appreciated the close personal ties between the two countries.
“The Prime Minister is a personal friend,” he said. “And the King and the royal families here are also friends of the Philippines on a purely personal level.”
In addition to meeting with government officials and business leaders, Marcos also visited the Sultan of Johor, the hereditary ruler of Johor.
“I had a very warm and productive meeting with the Sultan,” Marcos said. “We discussed ways to further strengthen the close ties between our two countries.”
In a separate roundtable meeting, Marcos said he has gained support from Malaysia in the government’s efforts to improve the agricultural sector in the Philippines as it was among the sectors badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
“Agriculture, again, is of primary importance to the Philippines, and we are happy that we have partners who will help us with the biotech,” President Marcos said.
Marcos said cooperation in the agricultural sectors of the Philippines and Malaysia would help the administration’s efforts to address farmers’ problems with regard to various diseases such as swine flu and Avian flu.
“That is something that we are still having to work with,” said Marcos, also the concurrent secretary of the Department of Agriculture.
“But we are making progress, and we are heading, I think, down the road where we can say that if our plans are — we achieved what we have planned to achieve, then we will have been able to provide the food that is needed to feed the country and to provide our economy with a firm foundation on which to build on,” he added.