PRESIDENT Arroyo will ask the Senate anew to pass the bill amending the Magna Carta for SMEs during the two-day special session that she called.

Trade Secretary Peter B. Favila said the President will submit a letter to the Senate reiterating her earlier communication to the Upper Chamber certifying the bill as urgent in a bid to have it included in the long list of measures that should be approved in the extra session days on February 19 and 20.

The House of Representatives has already approved the bill, but it still awaits approval on second reading at the Senate.

Among its salient features is the raising of the banks’ minimum mandatory requirement for SME lending to 10 percent of their total loanable funds from the current 8 percent.

Also, it would ease the restrictions on the alternative compliance to allow banks to engage more in direct lending to SMEs.

Favila said this is important to increase the absorptive capacity of the banks’ SME lending program.

Currently, Favila said the total P284 billion available financing funds from financial institutions could not be fully utilized because of the regulations that restrict direct lending.

“The SMEs really want to borrow, but right now they are having a hard time securing loans from the banks,” Favila said.

The Senate, he said, should not hesitate to pass the bill since even the banking sector has not shown resistance to it.

With the bill enacted into law, Favila said the grassroots enterprises would be greatly strengthened and there would be a better distribution of the economic growth.

SIX of the 15 infrastructure projects for Luzon Urban Beltway (LUB) super region costing P30 billion are scheduled to be finished this year, the growth area’s champion Edgardo D. Pamintuan said Thursday.

PRESIDENT Arroyo will ask the Senate anew to pass the bill amending the Magna Carta for SMEs during the two-day special session that she called.

THE Japanese and Philippine governments are a step away from signing loan agreements for two infrastructure projects included in the 27th Yen Loan package up for signing before the first quarter ends.

SORSOGON CITY—Lafayette Philippines Inc. (LPI) cannot yet rest easy with the resumption of its mining operations on the nearby island of Rapu-Rapu in Albay province, a spokesman of the local hierarchy of the Catholic Church declared Thursday.

CONSUMER watchdog National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms (Nasecore) urged the government that standards and sanctions for least cost supply be established and economic dispatch institutionalized.