On 1 June 2016, it was announced that Ma planned to visit Hong Kong on 15 June to attend the 2016 Award for Editorial Excellence dinner at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and would deliver a speech on Cross-Strait relations and East Asia [REF].
On 11 October 2016, Ma's office announced that he had accepted an invitation to attend and become one of the speakers at the World Chinese Economic Summit in Malacca, Malaysia which would take place on 16-17 November 2016 [REF].