Gov. Phil Murphy will be the keynote speaker at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce’s first ever “ReNew Jersey Business Summit” this April in Atlantic City.

The two-day event is meant to stand in for the Chamber’s annual Walk to Washington, which was canceled this winter for the second year in a row amid COVID-19 uncertainties.

Tom Bracken, the Chamber’s president and CEO, said he nonetheless expects this conference — scheduled for April 13 and 14 at the Borgata Atlantic City — to be “on a scale comparable with our Walk to Washington.”

“There is a strong desire among business people in New Jersey to improve the state’s business climate, and to network,” Bracken continued on Monday. “This event will provide a prime opportunity for both.”

Murphy’s remarks are scheduled for the afternoon of day one of the conference. Panels and other events will focus on “taxes and incentives’ health care costs; infrastructure and environment issues; and the labor shortage,” reads the Feb. 28 announcement.

A similar event was held at the Borgata in 2015, which the Chamber said brought out more than 520 attendees.

The annual Walk to Washington is typically held in late February or early March, for which an entire Amtrak train is chartered for all manner of New Jersey political and business insiders to attend. The “walk” in question is from one end of the often-times crowded train to the other. Afterward, attendees gather at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park.

The entire event brings out hundreds of business leaders, politicians, developers, lobbyists and journalists

In 2020, the last time the event was held, organizers put it together on the heels of a bombshell NJ.com report that detailed allegations of sexual harassment female attendees experienced at both the Walk and another major event for New Jersey political insiders, the New Jersey League of Municipalities annual convention in Atlantic City. At that time, the Chamber responded by ramping up its harassment policies ahead of the annual event.