President to attend virtual Boao Forum for Asia 2021 today

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will attend the opening ceremony of the annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) 2021 via video link today. 

The four-day annual conference, which is themed ‘A World in Change: Join Hands to Strengthen Global Governance and Advance Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Cooperation,’ will see the official opening ceremony today (20).

Topics including carbon neutrality, climate change and digital economy will top the agenda in the following days. 

The annual conference brings together Government leaders, senior officials and business executives in a coastal resort in South China’s Hainan Province.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will virtually deliver a keynote speech today (20). 

Other foreign leaders and heads of international organisations invited to attend the annual conference via video link include; Brunei’s Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Kazakhstan’s first President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith, President of the Republic of Korea Moon Jae-in, Singaporean President Halimah Yacob, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen, Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela, Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, President of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly Volkan Bozkir and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

Described by some as China’s version of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the BFA was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Despite the pandemic, over 2,000 people from over 60 countries and regions will be attending in person, making it the first major meeting to be held offline this year in the world.