THE PHILIPPINE furniture and herbal industries aim to be the top exporter of their respective products in Southeast Asia and have laid out plans to boost their competitiveness.
Mar 272014
Mar 162014
Hermie Limbo, general manager and country director for Ecolab and Nalco Philippines (left) and Mike Murphy, Ecolab general manager and market head, Southeast Asia and Korea, during the recent inauguration of Ecolab’s new head office. MANILA, Philippines – Ecolab Philippines, Inc. recently moved to its new head office located at the 18th floor, W Fifth Avenue Building, 5th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City. Called “One Manila,” the sleek and contemporary 1,367-sqm office space serves as the new headquarters of Ecolab Philippines, Inc. and Nalco Philippines, Inc., which is now part of Ecolab. In December 2011, Ecolab announced the merger with Nalco that resulted in the birth of a formidable US$13 billion global entity with some 45,000 employees in 171 countries with businesses in water, hygiene, sanitation and energy. Both companies combined under the name Ecolab. The inauguration of the new corporate office was led by Mike Murphy, Ecolab general manager and market head, Southeast Asia and Korea, and Hermie Limbo, general manager and country director for Ecolab and Nalco Philippines. They were joined by members of the company’s management committee, managers and employees from different departments, including their manufacturing plant personnel from Binan and Calamba, Laguna. “Our move to our new corporate address as ‘One Manila’ is expected to strengthen the synergy of the two companies,” says Limbo. “It will definitely result in more efficient operations and increased productivity with the ultimate goal of satisfying our customers. We take pride in what we do as One Ecolab: protecting Read More …
Feb 142014
MANILA, Philippines – Strong sales in existing branches and new stores drove fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) to its fastest earnings growth in seven years. In a regulatory filing, JFC said its net income jumped nearly a quarter to P4.64 billion in 2013 from P3.72 billion in 2012. Systemwide sales, which measures sales to consumers both from company-owned and franchised stores, picked up 12.8 percent to P104.9 billion from P92.27 billion. “The company increased its sales by 12.8 percent, the highest organic sales growth in six years, enabling JFC to breach the P100-billion sales mark for the first time,” said JFC chief operating officer and incoming COO Ernesto Tanmantiong. “Our progress in building the business has been taking place across our brands in different countries,” Tanmantiong said, adding the profit growth was the fastest in seven years. In the fourth quarter alone, JFC’s profits climbed 20.3 percent to P1.51 billion from P1.26 billion as systemwide retail sales rose 13.9 percent to P28.86 billion from P25.35 billion. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Specifically, systemwide sales in the Philippines gained 12.2 percent, China by 19.2 percent, US by 17.2 percent, and Southeast Asia and Middle East by 35.3 percent. Tanmantiong said the fastfood chain opened 98 new stores in the fourth quarter, the highest number of new stores opened in one quarter in JFC’s 35-year history. In 2013, JFC spent P4.1 billion as it opened 235 new stores worldwide. “In the years ahead, we look forward to Read More …
Jan 282014
NET inflows of foreign direct investments to Southeast Asia picked up last year as developing Asia as a whole remained the world’s top FDI destination, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reported yesterday.
Jan 212014
WHILE trade in commercial services grew in the third quarter last year, the Philippines remained behind most countries in Southeast Asia, preliminary data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) showed.
Jan 032014
TRANSFORMING the country’s economic zones into trade facilitation hubs can boost the country’s competitiveness amid an increasingly integrated Southeast Asia, Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (Philexport) said in a recent statement.
Dec 042013
THE PHILIPPINES will host the regional Salon International de l’Agroalimentaire (SIAL) — “what could be Southeast Asia’s largest food exhibition” — next June, according to a Department of Agriculture (DA) press release yesterday.
Oct 062013
President Barack Obama AP File Photo NUSA DUA, Bali – The US government warned Sunday that business in America was suffering from the federal shutdown as concern about Washington’s policy paralysis was voiced at an Asia-Pacific summit where President Barack Obama was a notable absentee. The first government closure in 17 years has directly affected hundreds of thousands of federal employees, but Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said companies were also starting to hurt, not least from her department’s inability to collate vital economic data. “The shutdown is not good for business. It’s not good for the economy,” Pritzker told reporters at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum on the Indonesian island of Bali, which Obama has been forced to skip to deal with the political crisis gripping Washington. “And we need to move on with the business of doing business in the United States. So, I am hopeful this gets resolved soon. It’s obviously having an impact,” Pritzker said. Her remarks on the economic impact came after Secretary of State John Kerry warned at the APEC meetings on Saturday that the standoff was “reckless,” and would weaken America’s diplomatic standing abroad if it did not end soon. Apart from APEC, Obama is also missing a separate East Asian summit this week and scheduled trips to Malaysia and the Philippines. His failure to come coincides with a diplomatic push by China in Southeast Asia featuring high-profile visits by President Xi Jinping, who is at APEC. Speaking at a Bali meeting of Read More …
Aug 292013
MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines sprinted to a fourth consecutive quarter of above seven-percent growth, beating forecasts with a strong 7.5-percent expansion in the April-June period to match China as the fastest-growing economy in Asia. The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) reported yesterday that the 7.5-percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second quarter topped the 7.2-percent median forecast by analysts as well as the 6.3-percent pace recorded a year ago. “The growth came mainly from consumer and public spending, buttressed by increased investments in fixed capital,” Jose Ramon Albert, secretary general of the NSCB, told reporters, adding that the services sector and manufacturing and construction also pushed up growth. For the first half of the year, GDP accelerated 7.6 percent, faster than the 6.4-percent clip in the same period last year. “The composition of our growth shows signs of an economy that is in the process of rebalancing, moving from being largely consumption-driven to becoming investment-led and industrialized, with the ability to provide higher quality jobs for Filipinos,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said in a statement. He said for the past three quarters, capital formation has been growing more rapidly than household consumption and the growth of industry has so far outpaced that of the services sector. Notable are the double-digit growth rates in fixed capital and the manufacturing subsector in the last quarter. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 He pointed out that with the latest GDP results, the Philippines remains the fastest Read More …
Aug 262013
MANILA, Philippines – Megawide Construction Corp., one of the country’s top building contractors, is tapping the Southeast Asian market as it ventures into exports of pre-fabricated construction materials. Local infrastructure projects and exports will form part of the company’s plan to diversify its revenue stream in the long run, a company executive said. “We’re considering regional expansion, particularly supply of our pre-cast (materials),” Megawide chief financial officer Oliver Tan said. Megawide’s first shipment of pre-fabricated construction materials to a Southeast Asian residential project contractor will likely be conducted early next year, Tan said. “We’re still looking at the numbers but it looks promising,” Tan said, adding that Megawide will benefit from zero tariffs for construction materials. The listed firm’s P1-billion pre-cast production plant in Taytay, Rizal, the biggest one-stop facility for pre-cast concrete building systems in the country and one of the largest in the region produces materials like beams, columns, stairs and walls. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 “Our facility is state-of-the-art in Southeast Asia. We’re more advanced than our neighbors so we’re looking at the supply of pre-cast regionally,” Tan said. To date, the pre-fabrication facility’s utilization rate is just 30 percent. “We’re trying to market our pre-cast products to horizontal developments,” Tan said, adding that pre-fabricated items have been sold mostly to high rise developments in the past few years. For the next three years, the supply of pre-cast building materials is targeted to account for 20 percent of Megawide’s total revenues, Tan Read More …