US funding for Mindanao development (From left) Bert Hofman, country director of the World Bank, US Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney, and Dr. Abas Candao, chairman of the Bangsamoro Development Agency, were present during the signing of a grant agreement providing $750,000 in US government funding to the multidonor Mindanao Trust Fund (MTF) on Friday at the International Finance Corp. office in Ayala Tower One, Makati City. The MTF is a World Bank-led initiative with the objective of supporting the peace process and development in Mindanao. --NONIE REYES

LOCAL steel manufacturers fear that they are in danger of being wiped out by an expected import surge from China once steel is given preferential access to the country under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-China free-trade agreement (FTA).

CRUDE oil rose as speculators purchased contracts in anticipation that prices will top $100 a barrel in New York, with further expectations that price may exceed that level next week as December futures and options contracts expire, said Edward Morse, the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. chief energy economist whose 2007 oil forecast was the highest among those surveyed, in a report.

THE Philippines’ achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has been “embarrassingly low” considering its amount of resources as a middle-income country, according to a United Nations official.

THE country’s gross domestic product (GDP) would not have reached 7.5 percent in the second quarter if it weren’t for the revenues that poured in from business-process outsourcing (BPO) firms, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

THE House of Representatives and its think tank have started working with the energy sector to rush legislation compelling the use of indigenous compressed natural gas (CNG) for buses and trucks, in a bid to reduce passenger and cargo fares and avoid polluting carbon-dioxide emissions as oil prices move beyond the $95-per-barrel mark.

THE Philippines remains to be one of the world’s top women-friendly nations and is the only lower-middle-income country included in the top 10 of the Gender Gap Index (GGI) for 2007, where it ranked sixth overall.

EXCISE tax collection from cigarettes and liquor fell in the first half by almost 20 percent, prompting Finance Secretary Margarito Teves to order a comprehensive review of the excise schedule to stanch estimated losses of some P34 billion.

THE Presidential Antismuggling Task Force said on Sunday that the government may reap as much as P1.4 billion more revenues through the Voluntary Disclosure Program (VDP), which provides a window for owners of imported vehicles who were able to register with the Land Transportation Office (LTO) despite having questionable documents.

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