President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s participation in the 29th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Thailand has opened up a lot of opportunities for the Philippines and Thailand to collaborate further, Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry president George Barcelon said.

Barcelon, who was part of Marcos' delegation to Thailand, said the President's meetings with Thai business groups are expected to bring positive results anytime soon.

"The President in the speech or the talk that we had with the Thai business… captains of various industries, was very frank. The President talked about the concern of food security that the Philippines is worrying," he said.

"The fact that everything is twice as high due to the cause of various factors that are beyond our control. But having said that, I think the President opens up that we can collaborate with Thailand," he added.

There are a lot of upsides for the Philippines in forging close ties with Thailand in terms of business, according to the PCCI president.

The President mentioned public-private partnership during those meetings, which could give various sectors impetus to invest more in the country's PPP program, Barcelon said.

He said that there are also Thai companies already operating in the Philippines that want to expand their businesses.

He cited the CP Group as one of the companies, which the President met on the sidelines of the APEC meeting.

The Thai conglomerate has a big investment in the Philippines' aqua feed products, as well as in poultry and food-related investments, he added.

"It was mentioned that they are optimistic about the growth in the Philippines," Barcelon said, mentioning interest by other Thai companies to invest in the Philippines.

Marcos also discussed other areas of investments including energy and telecommunications during his meetings with Thai businesses.

"So these are all positive indicators that Thailand business groups are having a positive view. The other gentlemen that I mentioned are in the tower building," the PCCI head said.

"He has some contracts to build in the Philippines and he looks forward to having more, you know, repeaters, broadband repeaters. He said Thailand has about almost 80,000 antennas," Barcelon pointed out.

He expressed his optimism that the APEC summit will pave the way for more foreign investors in the country, particularly from Thailand.

"So we hope that after this meeting, there would be more follow-ups," Barcelon said as he pointed to Thailand's 34 billion exports of halal products.

"The Philippines has been eyeing this market for quite some time, but we have not made real big inroads. And again this has opened up the possibility of more Thai companies helping us out or even investing in the Philippines for halal food," he added.