MANILA, Philippines – The peso moved flat against the dollar on Thursday, shedding 1.5 centavos to close at 43.6. Total volume transacted at the Philippine Dealing System amounted to $563.5 million, lower than the $781.3 million posted on Wednesday. The peso opened Thursday at 43.63.
MANILA, Philippines – Traders may have manipulated the prices of garlic in the market that resulted in the sudden increase of garlic at P280 per kilo in the market in the past few weeks. The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food chaired by Sen. Cynthia Villar is looking into manipulation as the reason behind the soaring of garlic prices. “There is really manipulation because the cost of garlic at production cost is P 40 per kilo while imported garlic is pegged at 17 pesos per kilo with duty. How can P 17 and 40 pesos per kilo can go up to P 280 per kilo?,” Villar said. The Philippines produces only eight percent of the garlic supply in the market while the rest is being imported. “The prices are too high. If you sell it at P 100 per kilo, that’s understandable but P 280 per kilo is too much,” said Villar, who is unable to hide her disappointments with heads of government agencies who do not want to take responsibility for the garlic price increase. Villar slammed the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Agriculture for failure to provide consumer protection in the case of garlic.Production cost is too low relative to price. The concerned agencies also failed to fully implement the Price Control Act, she said. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 “There is no shortage in supply. They (traders) are just controlling the supply which is in the hands of Read More …
MANILA, Philippines – Private car owners are cooking up a nationwide protest against the new rules and regulations being implemented by agencies under the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC). In an event created on Facebook titled “National Rally on all LTO offices!” and hosted by certain Jay Magallanes along with Mike Zander Tumamao, Ishi Lee II, Philip Fernandez and Marvin Bondad, private car owners are urged to troop to the streets on Friday (July 4) to protest the higher fines being implemented along with the new rules and regulations by the Land Transportation Office and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB). Participants are encouraged to wear black shirt to show their dismay over the JOINT ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER NO. 2014 01 or the REVISED SCHEDULE OF FINES AND PENALTIES FOR VIOLATIONS OF LAWS, RULES AND REGULATIONS GOVERNING LAND TRANSPORTATION. The buzz started from an article of motoring website Topgear.ph that drew negative reactions from private motorists. “Let us all do a Nationwide Simultaneous Rally on all LTO Offices regarding our disgust over their new rules and regulations!” stated on the event description. “I call on upon you guys, motorists, car clubs, car groups, car shops, netizens to make this happen!” Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 The protest will start at 10 a.m. in front of every LTO offices, particularly in the main office at the East Avenue in Quezon City with one-minute of honking of horns. As of this posting, 2,255 Facebook users have Read More …
MANILA, Philippines – The peso dipped against the dollar midday Thursday, settling at 43.65 from the previous day’s 43.585. Total volume transacted at the Philippine Dealing System amounted to $291.5 million in the morning, lower than the $413.8 million posted the same period on Wednesday. The peso opened Thursday at 43.63.
MANILA, Philippines – Dominant carrier and multimedia service provider Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) is spending $2 million to double the international bandwidth capacity of the $500 million Asia-America Gateway (AAG) cable system linking the Philippines directly to the US. PLDT president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno said the upgrade to the 100G per wavelength technology would allow PLDT to support more industry requirements as well as further enhance the quality of experience of customers. “With the deployment of 100G technology in this international link, we will be able to extract more capacity out of our existing fiber cables and support the delivery of high-bandwidth services and applications. This will give our customers the benefits of a much faster and resilient global transport network,” he said. The additional investments would double the current bandwidth capacity of the only transpacific cable that directly links Southeast Asia and the Philippines to the US mainland. PLDT was a lead investor with $50 million out of the $500 million AAG Cable System running 20,000 kilometers of high-bandwidth optical fiber linking Southeast Asia directly to the US. The AAG consortium consists of 19 parties providing connectivity between the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Hong Kong SAR, Guam, Hawaii and the US West Coast and seamless interconnection with other major cable systems connecting Europe, Australia, other parts of Asia and Africa and using Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology to provide upgradeable, future-proof transmission facilities for telecommunications traffic. Business ( Article MRec Read More …
MANILA, Philippines – More visits of high ranking officials from Canada are likely to be made in the coming months in line with promoting greater ties with the Philippines. “Over the past years, our bilateral relationship with the government of the Philippines has become stronger and I think in the coming months, you will see more visits by senior Canadian leadership looking to pick some of the good aspects of the potential,” Canada’s political counsellor for the Philippines Jamie Christoff said during the Canada Day Fair 2014 held yesterday. Christoff noted that the existing people-to-people relations between the two countries provide a platform to expand ties. At present, the Philippines has the largest number of immigrants to Canada, which stands at 700,000. Christoff said both countries recognize there are opportunities to strengthen ties. Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (CanCham) president Julian Payne said in the same event the business community is interested in promoting greater trade as well as investment ties between the two countries. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Payne said there have been several business missions from Canada visiting the country in line with the aim of increasing trade and investment flows between the two parties. “There have been a number of missions and we can expect to see more,” he said. A trade mission composed of firms engaged in agribusiness is expected to arrive in the country sometime this year. The CanCham is also organizing an outbound mission composed of 20 Read More …
MANILA, Philippines – The Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) has extended an additional P690-million loan to the local government of Camarines Sur to support the various development programs of the province. Specifically, the financial assistance would be used to fund P300 million worth of infrastructure projects. Another P200 million would also fund the construction of a food terminal while P100 million would finance Internet-based curriculum and connectivity of public schools. The loan would also finance various tourism development initiatives worth P50 million and for the completion of various priority projects worth P41.9 million. DBP previously financed various infrastructure, school buildings and facilities, mini-hospital/ health centers, IT park and tourism projects of the LGU, including the world-renowned Camarines Sur Water Sports Complex and Gota Beach Resort in Caramoan Island. The assistance to the Camarines Sur LGU earned for the DBP the Most Outstanding Local Economic Development Project award from the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific in 2011. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 It also catapulted Camarines Sur into the country’s top tourist destination from 2009-2010. In April this year, DBP also granted a P268.502-million loan to the Camarines Sur IV Electric Cooperative (Casureco IV) to partially finance its capital expenditure requirements that will lead to the improvement of the distribution system’s capacity, efficiency, reliability and safety. The project will also address the load requirement of new customers, overloading of transformers, and dilapidated kilowatt-hour meters. The DBP loan will also be used Read More …
MANILA, Philippines – Power, energy and gas technology leader Shell, together with global consultants Booz & Co., studied more than 500 urban centers across the globe and gathered data on how cities have been utilizing energy. The results pointed to six illustrative archetypes indicating where energy use is most concentrated and where future urbanization is set to take place. The findings, published in a report titled New Lenses on Future Cities, show energy use currently concentrated in two of the six city archetypes: sprawling metropolises like Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, and prosperous communities such as Dubai and Stockholm. These cities have relatively low-density and high per capita GDP, and are typically found in the United States and Europe. Urban powerhouses, the third archetype characterized by high population densities and high individual incomes, are also heavy energy users. However, their share of global consumption is modest by comparison as only a few cities belong in this archetype, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and New York. Developing mega-hubs like Hyderabad and Chongqing, and underprivileged crowded cities such as Manila and Bangalore are relatively light energy users at present. But while these cities have low individual incomes and medium to high populations, most of them will join the next wave of urbanization as they become more prosperous. Their growing energy demand will shape global levels of energy use, making their development choices critical. Underdeveloped urban centers, the most common archetype, are low energy users — accounting for only 11 percent of total Read More …
MANILA, Philippines – Fifteen small banks are set to merge and consolidate as of end-June this year. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said these applications were approved by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. and are currently being processed by the central bank. These deals were made under the BSP and PDIC’s Strengthening Program for Rural Banks Plus, to encourage mergers and acquisitions among rural and thrift banks, and also to weed out problematic banks. The program dangles incentives to investors for them to rescue ailing banks to minimize bank closures and by its name, strengthen the small lenders in the industry. “In addition, there are five other applications for consolidation and acquisition in the pipeline,” Tetangco said. The SPRB Plus, which will be in place until the end of the year, provides white knights or strategic third party investors financial assistance, regulatory reliefs, and branching and other incentives once they rescue problematic banks. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Last year, 18 banks were ordered closed and placed under the receivership of the PDIC. Central bank data showed the number of head offices last year slid to 673, although bank branches continued to expand to 9,262. This was a result of continued consolidations and the exit of weaker lenders, the BSP said. “The Philippine rural banking sector continues to grow and expand… even as natural calamities devastated wide areas in the Visayas (late last year),” Tetangco said. The rural banking sector has increased Read More …
MANILA, Philippines – Property giant Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) stands to benefit from a P65-billion mass transit infrastructure project that will be awarded to conglomerates Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) and Ayala Corp. (AC). The real estate arm of the Ayala conglomerate will introduce a retail concept in railway stations while additional Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects will improve access to its properties, an official leading AC’s infrastructure businesses said. “ALI is our retail partner, the leasing partner,” Noel Eli B. Kintanar, executive vice-president of AC Infrastructure, said in a briefing. The assets up for redevelopment into commercial areas are part of the concession agreement for the P65-billion Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT1) Cavite extension project, Kintanar said. Specifically, there are plans to put up shopping centers or district mall concepts in LRT-1 stations, he said. Early last month, the Light Rail Manila Consortium formed by MPIC and AC offered to pay a P9.35-billion premium for the PPP mass transit project. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 The LRT-1 Cavite extension project would increase the span of Line 1 to 32.4 kilometers from 20.7 km with a new south endpoint in Niog, Bacoor, Cavite. Approximately 10.5 km of the Cavite extension system would be elevated while 1.2 km would be at grade level. The government, which will award the 32-year concession to the consortium this month, has set aside P30 billion to acquire up to 39 new light rail vehicles. Kintanar said a retail concept could be Read More …