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‘Toyota mall’
Visitors view
Toyota vehicles on display during a press preview of the
Tressa indoor shopping mall, in Yokohama, west of Tokyo on
Tuesday. The new sprawling shopping mall with 220 stores
and restaurants, opening to the public this week, is being
developed, built and operated by a relative newcomer to
the business, Toyota Motor Corp.
--AP |
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Focus on balanced budget scored |
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BALANCING
the national budget isn’t everything. Deficits are not all
that bad, either. That’s the considered opinion of former
central bank governor Jose Cuisia Jr. in response to Finance
Secretary Margarito Teves’s report of a P14-billion deficit
in January this year.
Cuisia, now
chief executive officer of Philippine American Life and
General Insurance Co., said balancing the nation’s budget
has its merits but has far more drawbacks than the
government cares to admit. |
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‘Reforms ease bank-credit risks in RP’ |
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“BANK-credit
risk in the
Philippines
has been elevated by a difficult operating environment, a
new and developing supervisory and regulatory framework and
low level of government support,” Moody’s Investor Service
said Tuesday.
Moody’s
senior analyst Richard Lung said in a statement sent out of
Hong Kong that there are other risks involved and local
banks expose themselves to greater lending risks each year
owing to regulatory and supervisory lag. |
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Revenue lack, global woes, graft top growth risks |
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THE
Philippine economy may not be able to replicate the economic
successes of 2007, but it can still turn out high growth if
it can address three key obstacles of external factors,
namely, the global economic slowdown, revenue deficit and
weak government policies against corruption.
This is
according to Dr. Cielito Habito, director of the Ateneo de
Manila University’s Department of Economics, who addressed
the Information Technology Association of the
Philippines
(Itap) at its economic briefing Tuesday. |
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Share of RP travel, tourism in GDP seen to decline in 10
years |
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THE
contribution of the local travel and tourism industry to the
country’s gross domestic product (GDP) may decline in the
next 10 years, according to the latest industry report of
the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).
The WTTC’s
2008 Tourism Satellite Accounting research showed the local
tourism industry’s contribution to GDP would be 8.8 percent,
or $15.1 billion, in 2008; and decline to 8.7 percent, or
$25.7 billion, by 2018. |
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400,000 cars and still counting |
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TOYOTA Motor
Philippines (TMP) reached another milestone after it became
the first domestic manufacturer to produce 400,000 units of
vehicles.
Dr. David
Go, TMP senior executive vice president, said the company’s
400,000-unit production record does not count those
assembled by its predecessor Delta Motors, which
manufactured
Toyota
vehicles before the incorporation of TMP in 1988. |
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New
$5 bill in circulation EnhanceS Security
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WASHINGTON,
D.C.—The first new $5 bill was issued by the Federal
Reserve during a commemorative transaction at President
Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home in
Washington,
D.C., a historic site used by the former president as a
White House summer retreat.
Officials
from the Federal Reserve Board, US Treasury, Bureau of
Engraving and Printing and US Secret Service ushered the new
$5 bill into circulation at the Lincoln Cottage gift shop. |
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Domestic passengers suffer in dark, steaming terminal |
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CONFIDENCE-damaging power outages struck the Manila Domestic
Airport Tuesday, the second in four days, forcing airport
authorities to manually process passengers and cargoes using
only emergency lighting.
The Aviation
Security Group fielded several K-9 unit dogs to sniff pieces
of luggage in the absence of x-ray machines, resulting in
long delays and much-frayed nerves having occurred in the
midst of the peak travel season. |
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NFA
cites factors for rise in rice price |
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CITY OF
MALOLOS—As the palay-harvest season peaks, commercial prices
of the golden grains continue to soar, breaching P17 a
kilogram (kg) at the Intercity Industrial Estate, widely
known as a major rice-trading center in the country, located
in Bocaue town in Bulacan. |
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MORE STORIES ... |
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Candle in the
wind. Government employees light candles at the launching of
Public Servants for Truth and Justice, or P.S. Truth and
Justice Now!, in Quezon City. The group claimed that as
public servants they cannot insulate themselves from the
people’s outcry against corruption.
--NONOY LACZA |
