Philippines Featured at the
Asia Pacific Ireland Business Forum

The Philippines was one of the Asian countries featured at the recently-held Asia Pacific Ireland Business Forum (APIBF) in Dublin. The APIBF is a collaboration with  the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association, Ireland's largest sporting organisation and is celebrated as one of the great amateur sporting associations in the world today).  The business event looked at new Asian realities for Irish business with expert guidance in the key opportunity sectors of New Technologies, Financial Services, Pharma and Life Sciences, Education Services, Food and Tourism. 

At the 17 June forum held at Croke Park, the Philippine Embassy was one of the two (2) Dublin-based ASEAN embassies who had an information stand during the conference.  The others were represented by their embassies and trade promotion agencies based in London.  The Philippine booth focused its promotion of the following key sectors: public-private sector partnership, outsourcing and tourism investments. The forum  was attended by about 300 business representatives of top Irish companies. Philippine Ambassador to Ireland Ariel Abadilla congratulated the organizers for enabling the participants to establish solid business contacts and increasing the Irish understanding of Asian markets.

APIBF 2011 builds on the success it has achieved since it was inaugurated in Singapore in 2007 and held subsequent events in Malaysia, Thailand, and Hong Kong.  Since then, the APIBF has evolved into the most important gathering of Irish businesspeople based in Asia Pacific and the Gulf. 

In his keynote speech, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Eamon Gilmore said that “Asia will be the economic fulcrum of the world.....and that Ireland could not afford to ignore opportunities arising in Asian markets.”