“I serve my members and will support whatever is decided,” PBEC president Dalton Tanonaka said this morning. “But I’ve been trying to better connect Hawai‘i businesses to our organization and hope leaders here see the value of having PBEC remain.”

The group will hold its 36th general meeting in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 22-26 and will vote on whether to move to the Southeast Asia city-state.

“Our board is studying recommendations that we take advantage of incentives being offered by the Singapore government and partnerships we could build with other organizations located there, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council,” Tanonaka said.

PBEC, founded in 1967, is a private-sector organization for CEOs. It has been based in Honolulu since 1992. It has 1,000 members throughout the region but only a few members based in Hawai‘i.