Investments

A HOUSE panel on Monday expressed alarm over the latest World Bank report saying that, a year and a half into the new administration, it had become harder and not easier to do business in the Philippines.

The US government has renewed the Generalized System of Preference (GSP) scheme for the country that will allow local exports to enter the US market duty-free or at preferential duties.

To stimulate an economy you need to create jobs, to get money into consumers’ hands, to build infrastructure that encourages businesses and farmers to get their products to the market.

THE Philippines, already at the bottom of the list, fell two places further to rank 136th out of 183 countries in the world in ease of doing business during the first year of the Aquino administration, the World Bank and the International Finance Corp. said in a joint report Thursday.

INVESTORS ARE WILLING to wait for government to finish a fresh round of reviews of the much-delayed public-private partnership (PPP) program, since the need for caution is understandable, top executives of financial firms said late last week.

With higher labor costs in China’s eastern coastal cities, attracting investors may be tough at this point. But then again, the investors they need are probably already there so that places like Shanghai and Guangdong don’t have to worry too much.

Foreign direct investments (FDIs) are coming in trickles that it would take years for the Aquino government to fill the bucket unless it would aggressively improve infrastructure, simplify steps of doing business and reduce corruption.

HOT money flows fell in September amid a flight to safe havens on investor fears that Europe would not avoid a debt crisis that could derail global economic recovery.

FOREIGN direct investments (FDI) to the Philippines fell in the first seven months of the year amid concerns over the Europe’s debt problems and a stalled recovery in the US.

MANILA, Philippines – Total foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows retreated 9.7 percent in the first seven months of the year due to the economic uncertainty in advanced economies led by the US and the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

Right. Reforming our investment laws is not a silver bullet. I don’t think advocates ever said that. There are other things to do and reform to make the Philippines investment friendly. Removing rules that discriminate against direct foreign investments is a good starting point for reforms.

MANILA, Philippines – Yokohama Tire Philippines Inc. (YTPI) is investing an additional $650 million to expand its facility in Clark. Clark Development Corp. (CDC) said the expansion will make Yokohama the largest tire manufacturer in the world.

YET another typhoon, and in September. I have lost count of how many weather disturbances there have been over the past months, I can barely remember when we last had a sunny weekend day here in Alabang. Must be something to do with climate change, the melting of the polar ice caps, and holes in…

YOKOHAMA Rubber Co. and Toshiba Corp. on Wednesday announced they will expand their operations in the Philippines, and that Yokohama’s expansion would make its Philippine plant its biggest facility in the world..

WASHINGTON – Reflecting a drop in levels of economic freedom around the world, the Philippines slid in the global rankings to 89th place from 76th previously among 141 countries surveyed, the Economic Freedom of the World: 2011 annual report said.

TOKYO – Japanese firms expressed commitment to expand or put up new businesses in the Philippines during President Aquino’s meetings with business groups yesterday, Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma said.

AT LEAST THREE Japanese companies plan to keep expanding in the Philippines, Malacañang yesterday announced, as President Benigno S. C. Aquino III and his economic managers pitched for fresh investments and tie-ups under the Private-Public Partnership (PPP) program.

TOKYO (via PLDT)—Japanese business leaders are looking at transferring some of their manufacturing operations to the Philippines following the earthquake and tsunami that struck the country in March, Japanese Ambassador to Manila Toshinao Urabe said Saturday.

(Updated 6:09 pm.) While President Benigno Aquino III declared that foreign capitalists are “lining up” to invest in the Philippines, the United Nations’ World Investment Report (WIR) 2011 shows that the lines are much longer leading to Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

MANILA, Philippines – The net inflow of foreign portfolio investments or “hot money” jumped 230 percent in the first eight months of the year as foreign capital continued to flood emerging market economies, including the Philippines, albeit at a slower pace over the past few weeks, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) has revised its yearend target to 11-11-11 following a robust performance in first eight months.

MANILA, Philippines – Foreign direct investments (FDI) grew 16.4 percent in the first half of the year on the back of favorable investor sentiment, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – Investments for the first eight months of the year went up by 76.27 percent to P437.867 billion from P248.411 billion a year ago, according to a report from the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA).

MANILA, Philippines – Rising housing and living costs, as well as corruption and poor infrastructure, continue to bother American businessmen in the Philippines, according to a recent survey of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) covering firms operating in Southeast Asia.

FOREIGN CHAMBERS want the government to consider shortening the Foreign Investment Negative List to support President Benigno S. C. Aquino III’s promise of a Philippines that is “open for business.”

MANILA, Philippines – Businesses turned more optimistic in the third quarter of the year after two straight quarters of decline in the business optimism index under the Aquino administration.

MANILA, Philippines – Japanese firms are looking at the Philippines as an alternative manufacturing site following the disasters that hit Japan months ago, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The Board of Investments (BOI) said it expects the record high investment commitments to be exceeded as early as third quarter this year as the agency was able to attract P270 billion worth of investment commitments in the first seven months of the year, a 20-percent increase compared to the same period…

“We have the best workforce in the world.” — Philippine Economic Zone Authority[1] “Masipag” is the Filipino word for industrious, a term that has often been used to describe the Filipino worker and a trait that has made the Philippines a growing destination for foreign direct investment (FDI).

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang welcomed yesterday the “vote of confidence” in the Aquino administration as shown in the Makati Business Club’s 2011 Executive Outlook Survey showing that 64 percent of the respondents acknowledged that the business environment had improved over the past year.