Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his desire to build strong collaboration with the administration of President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. in helping the Filipino micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) grow their business.

"There’s a number of things that we can do to make it easier for Canadian investors to be building in the Philippines. We should make sure we’re accelerating our works so that we can be much more active partners on that," Trudeau told Marcos during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits in Cambodia.

Trudeau said his country has a number of programs and Canada would be happy to work with the Philippines for the benefit of the economy.

"And there’s also a lot that we can do on small and medium size businesses, particularly women-owned and run, which is an area of tremendous growth and strength in the Philippine economy to see women succeed," he added.

Marcos then welcomed Trudeau's offer, stating that one of the thrusts of his administration is to assist MSMEs in recovering from the pandemic, as many of them lost steam in the past years.

"They are 99.8 percent of our businesses, our MSMEs. They are 62, 63 percent of our employment. [They] are employed in MSMEs. And it took a big hit in the pandemic,” the President said.

"And so that’s what we’ve been trying to do -- is to try to support them, and it has a very large multiplier effect,” the chief executive added.