THE slowing world economy and rising inflation will be the major hurdles that Philippine businesses will deal with in 2008. This, according to Samie Lim, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) who spoke at the launching this week of the book  Whither the Philippines in the 21st Century in Makati City.

“The Philippine economy by itself is doing very good. It has shown momentum and sustainable growth, and it is the world economy that’s pulling us down. ” To underscore his point, he then cited the high oil prices, the subprime crisis and possible—some say it’s a fact already—recession of the US.

Inflation, on the other hand, will also challenge business, as this will cause the price of inputs to increase and may cut into profit margins of companies. Last March saw inflation in the Philippines at 6.4 percent, the highest registered inflation in 20 months.

Asked whether the business community was concerned about the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) raising interest rates, he said the business community was fully behind whatever the BSP decides to do.

“We’re fully confident that our governor [Amando Tetangco], one of the best in Asia, will do what is best for the economy,” he said. He sees the issue of inflation as being very temporary, but declined to give an estimate as to how temporary this would be.

Fluctuations in the exchange rate will also be a key issue affecting the Philippine economy, said the PCCI chief.

“We have 10 million overseas Filipino workers and, naturally, a change in the value of the peso will have some kind of effect on the spending power of these people,” he added.

At any rate, the country has sound economic fundamentals—enough to ensure it can still achieve good gross domestic product growth at a range of 6 percent to 7 percent in 2008, according to Lim.

IN the same event, Dr. Lorraine Salazar one of the book editors  added a note of balance and hope regarding the state of the Philippines as a whole and where it might be headed, with the Philippine launch of Whither the Philippines in the 21st Century.

The book, she said, will deal with the political, religious, economic and social facets of Philippine society to give people outside and within the Philippines a better understanding of the country.

“Most foreigners only hear about the Philippines when something bad happens. The news they hear from us is mostly negative in context, so we made this book to enlighten others and our own countrymen,” she said in an interview.

“We made the book to fill in the gaps of research about the Philippines and to give others an introduction to the complexities of the Philippine culture, to analyze the problems that hound us. But most important, the book gives insights on how these problems are not insurmountable and [stresses] that there are solutions,” she explained. 

She described the book’s contributors as being among the best experts in their respected fields—among them, Prof. Alex Magno, Dr. Patricio Abinales, Ambassador Rodolfo Severino, Mary Mirandilla and Dr. Ernesto Pernia.

The book was initiated by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, and published by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation.

THE Philippines would do well to take a cue from China, which has been able to produce enough rice to feed its more than 1 billion population through massive planting of hybrid rice, said SL Agritech Corp. chairman Henry Lim.

THE New York-based Citi Group, one of the world’s largest financial-services firms, said the Philippines deserves more credit than Moody’s Investor Services has given it.

THE Japanese government and the national government are poised to operationalize the Philippines Water Revolving Fund (PWRF) that will allow local government units (LGUs) and government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) access to official development assistance (ODA) loans, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

MALACAÑANG’S wish for early ratification of the Japan Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa) ran into another obstacle Wednesday after three senators voiced doubts on the legality of a proposal by foreign relations committee chairman Sen. Miriam Santiago for the Senate to vote for conditional concurrence to the controversial treaty.

DAVAO CITY—Swedish Ambassador Inger Ultvedt advised the Philippines to make governance transparent and accountable and put a brake to the sending of too many talented people abroad.

HAGATNA, Guam—The Guam tourism office on Tuesday urged mayors from the Philippines to promote a two-way traffic for tourism between the Philippines and Micronesia by encouraging Filipino travelers to consider the region as their destination.

THE slowing world economy and rising inflation will be the major hurdles that Philippine businesses will deal with in 2008. This, according to Samie Lim, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) who spoke at the launching this week of the book  Whither the Philippines in the 21st Century in Makati City.

CEMENT literally is a major “building block” both of the ancient and modern times.

The  Assyrians and Babylonians used cement in the form of clay, and the Egyptians advanced to the discovery of lime and gypsum mortar as a binding agent for building structures such as the pyramids.