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Sea of green.
Despite
production methods seemingly as archaic as ours, fields
such as these in a photo taken in March in east of Hanoi
make Vietnam one of the top rice exporters. Increasing
regulation of exported rice has not dampened Malacañang’s
confidence that Hanoi will deliver on its promise of 1.5
million metric tons.
--LEON MEDADO |
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TOP STORIES |
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Alert raised on fresh price surges |
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THE Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is on full alert against price
surges and vowed Monday to act decisively as or when
inflation expectations unravel and so-called second-round
effects begin to be felt.
In an e-mail
from Madrid, Spain, which is hosting the Annual Governors’
Meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), BSP Governor
Amando Tetangco Jr. said second-round effects, which respond
to monetary-policy adjustments, are the real threats to
inflation as commodity prices surge further as a result of
wage and transport increases. |
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NFA:
buffer enough for lean days despite failed tender |
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THE National
Food Authority (NFA) assured the public that despite the
failure of the rice tender held Monday, the supply of rice
during the lean months of July, August and September will be
adequate.
The
Philippines was hoping to buy 675,000 metric tons (MT) for
buffer stocking, but the lone bidder in Monday’s rice
tender, Vietnam Southern Corp. (Vinafood), was disqualified,
prompting the NFA to declare the auction a failure. |
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Will
cartel members be good neighbors? |
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THE
Philippine government remains hopeful that the proposed
Organization of Rice-Exporting Countries (Orec), composed of
Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Burma or Myanmar, will
consider the needs of its rice-importing neighbors like the
Philippines.
National
Food Authority (NFA) Administrator Jessup Navarro noted that
the five countries planning to put up an Opec-style rice
cartel in Southeast Asia are members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), the Asean Food Safety
Reserve Board, as well as the East Asia Emergency Rice
Reserve (EAERR). |
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Asean+3 OK’s Chiang Mai Initiative expansion |
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MADRID,
Spain—Finance
ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)
with China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (Asean+ 3) have
approved the multilateralization of the Chiang Mai
Initiative (CMI) worth at least $80 billion.
In a
briefing after its three-hour 11th Ministerial Meeting here
Sunday, the Asean+3 also announced the fund will be
operational by next year after a regulatory framework is
developed. |
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US
recession, inflation top growth risks in Aspac |
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MADRID,
Spain—The United States recession and high inflation are
some of the major factors cited by international
credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) that could
dampen growth and downgrade credit ratings in the
Asia-Pacific region.
According to
its latest publication “Where to From Here? Standard &
Poor’s View On Credit Trends in
Asia,” S&P said
that “from a short-term perspective,” the region will remain
resilient and have the ability to grow even if the rest of
the world economy is in trouble. |
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RP
S&T brain drain below critical level |
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DESPITE the
steady exodus of Filipino graduates in science and
technology, the Philippines still maintains a critical mass
of science-and-technology human resource, below the critical
level of brain drain, according to the soon-to-be-published
“Emigration of Science and Technology Educated Filipinos
(1998-2006).”
The report
was done by the Department of Science and Technology-Science
Education Institute (DOST-SEI) in cooperation with the
Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO). It said that despite
a “considerable permanent loss” of manpower in science and
technology, the stock of professionals in this field has not
reached critical level. |
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Seair ‘rejects’ Yao offer, but talks ‘active’ |
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THE owners
of Southeast Asian Airlines (Seair) said they have rejected
the offer of industrialist Alfredo Yao to purchase the
airline, but the fruit-juice king’s camp stressed the two
sides are still “actively talking.”
A highly
placed source in the carrier told the BusinessMirror: “The
deal is off. The offer is $2 million too low from the
original consensus price [between the owners and
Yao’s group].” |
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MORE STORIES ... |
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LUDOVICO JARINA
(second from right), deputy administrator of the National
Food Authority, opens the rice bidding Monday for the
Philippines’ plan to buy 675,000 metric tons of rice to
shore up its stockpiles. Manila failed to buy rice after a
tender to increase its buffer stock attracted only one
bidder from Vietnam, highlighting global anxiety over the
staple food of Filipinos. -- AP |
