Dr Mark Borthwick, former Executive Director of the US PECC committee passed away on 14 July 2024. He was one of the founders and stalwarts of PECC. Through the years Mark led projects on Direct Investment and Technology (1983) and Foreign Investment (1985). On the fifteenth anniversary of PECC, Mark put together the Pacific Economic Development Report, Advancing Regional Integration (PEDR) Report to reflect the extent to which regionalism is being defined and advanced by fundamental economic and market forces.

In 1995, before the internet was a world-wide and social media was yet to be invented, his words are prescient, in his introduction to the PEDR he wrote:

“one of the paradoxes of an increasingly information rich world is that an overabundance of information can be an obstacle rather than an asset in terms of greater understanding. The burgeoning of information about Asia exemplifies this trend. In daily news reports and a general outpouring of data and opinion, rarely does one find a coherent or comprehensive view from which to understand key trends in the region. Even aggregate trade and investment flows for the region (some of which are used here) can be as misleading as they are helpful if they are interpreted through the distorting lens of unilateral policy goals.”

In 1992, he published a book, Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia, to serve as a study guide in connection with a Public Television series of the same name. The book became used as a college textbook that went through four editions over the years. He authored a number of books on the evolving Asia Pacific region.

He is survived by his wife Beck, his son, John (Deanna), grandson, Elio, and two stepdaughters, Alexandra and Miranda and their children, as well as his two brothers and two sisters.