Maniolas

MANILA, Philippines – Selective buying allowed the local stock barometer to rebound despite mixed performance of overseas markets and the World Bank’s cut in its global economic growth forecast. The Philippine Stock Exchange index recovered 0.46 percent or 31.20 points to finish at 6,809.18, while the broader all shares index inched up 0.13 percent or 5.39 points to 4,076.01. “It seems like market is still in a consolidation mode. But despite the drop in Asian markets given the World Bank’s downgrade, investors continue to pick up stocks that will perform well for the year,” Astro del Castillo, managing director of First Grade Finance Inc., said in a phone interview. Del Castillo said the direction of the local bourse continued to be influenced by economic reports here and abroad. The World Bank yesterday trimmed its 2014 global economic growth forecast to 2.8 percent from 3.2 percent announced in January amid slower growth in developed countries and geopolitical tensions. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 percent or 74.68 points to 15,069.48 but other regional indices like Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Singapore’s Straits Times retreated. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Wall Street also ended mixed on Tuesday, snapping the string of record closing of the broad-based Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 index as the stock market took a breather. The Dow Jones industrial average barely rose 0.02 percent or 2.82 points to a record high 16,945.92, while the broader S&P 500 fell 0.02 percent or 0.48 point to 1,950.79.

MANILA — The Philippines has reduced its sugar stocks for exports by 90,000 metric tons (MT), or a third of the allocation for world markets for the 2013/14 crop year, to boost domestic supply and arrest further local price increases, the industry regulator said.

THE PRESIDENTIAL Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization (PAFSAM) has said that the government is to spend P750 million to address the coconut scale insect epidemic that has already damaged 1.5 million trees in Calabarzon and Basilan.

THE KEY in determining the taxability of a transaction is to know the nature of said transaction. This is definitely important in determining the taxability of a lease. A finance lease should be differentiated from an operating lease. Recently, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) clarified that a finance lease is subject to documentary stamp tax (DST) as a loan transaction instead of a lease transaction.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) said yesterday the agreement with the SM Prime Holdings on the location of the proposed P1.4 billion Metro Rail Transit and Light Rail Transit (MRT-LRT) common station expired more than three years ago. Michael Arthur Sagcal, DOTC spokesperson, said the memorandum of agreement signed by SM Prime Holdings Inc. and the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) that was approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in July 2009 already lapsed in 2011. SM Prime filed a case against the DOTC and LRTA before the Pasay City regional trial court early this month seeking an injunction to stop the government from relocating the planned common station to the Trinoma Mall instead of SM North EDSA mall. “First of all, the NEDA approval that SMPHI is referring to expired in 2011.  The 2013 NEDA approval, which is in effect, allows the Common Station to be built in the more advantageous location at MRT3,” Sagcal said. The proposed common station would connect the LRT1, MRT3, and the future proposed MRT7 of diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. The MOA also stated that SM would have the naming rights to the proposed common station in exchange for P200 million. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 “Secondly, SMPHI was publicly quoted through its president in 2013 as saying that it does not mind where the common station is built, as long as it can exercise its alleged naming rights,” Sagcal said. Read More …