THE Philippines has signed an air agreement with Macau providing for more flights to China’s leisure and casino capital, said an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

DFA Undersecretary for Finance and Administration Franklin Ebdalin said the air agreement signed on April 24 in Macau provides for rights for more seat capacity for carriers of the Philippines. Ebdalin is vice chairman of the Philippine negotiating team for air talks with various countries.

Under the agreement, there will be an entitled 3,600-seat capacity for Manila to Macau flights per week and vice versa. Another 6,000 seats weekly will be allowed for combined weekly flights for Philippine carriers flying from Clark and Subic.

Ebdalin also said that outside Manila, there will be 3,500 seats allowed for carriers coming from Cebu, Davao and Tuguegarao.

“We obtained a better deal with Macau because it [referring to the agreement] takes care of all the requirements for all our carriers in terms of seats capacity,” said Ebdalin in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

He said, “This is short of open skies with Macau.”

The DFA official, meanwhile, will leave for Vancouver, Canada, to renegotiate the air agreement signed with the Canadian government owing to the demands for more flights going to North American territory.

The negotiations for expanded air agreement with Canada that will take place over the weekend seeks to allow more flights of up to 14 per week to Canada.

“There is a demand for more seats due to the increase in the number of Filipinos going to Canada, as well as tourists coming from Vancouver, and vice versa,” said Ebdalin.

The air agreement signed with Canada last year only allowed for four flights a week from Manila to Vancouver and vice versa. “We need at least 14 flights a week,” said Ebdalin.

The Philippines is set to negotiate for air agreements this year with countries like Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Russia, Finland, Ukraine and Turkey.

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is targeting more than 2,500 retail outlets in Metro Manila by next month to distribute and sell state-subsidized rice at P18.25 and P25 per kg to an initial 400,000 beneficiary-families.

PRELIMINARY data released by the United Coconut Associations of the Philippines (Ucap) revealed that coconut exports from January to March this year went up by 89 percent to 471,685 metric tons (MT) in copra terms.

THE Philippines has signed an air agreement with Macau providing for more flights to China’s leisure and casino capital, said an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

THE Philippine air panel is going to ask its counterpart in Japan to open up new service points, an official of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) said Wednesday.

SEN. Rodolfo Biazon on Wednesday filed Joint Resolution 11 seeking to suspend the implementation of Republic Act 9367, also known as the Biofuels Act of 2006, until such time that all resources, such as lands, technology, organizational structures and marketing mechanisms needed to ensure the country’s food self-sufficiency, especially on rice, are already in place.

OVER the past years, the rate of mortality and morbidity due to road-traffic accidents has risen to unsettling levels. An annual report released by the Philippine National Police in 2006 recorded a total of 15,064 accidents throughout the country, which resulted in 674 deaths, 3,767 injuries and 10,623 property-damage cases.