NEWS FLASH

UPCOMING WEBINAR - CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA: ECONOMIC UPSWINGS AND POL...

Time to abolish PDAF
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 24 Aug 2013

With that statement, President Aquino may have hoped to head off a potentially high-strung "Million People March" set on on Monday against a decades-old practice of allocating funds in government's annual budget to legislators for their pet projects. Officially tagged Priority Development Assista...

Stock Market Drop
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 22 Aug 2013

The Philippine Stock Exchange index dropped by 6 pc today, after the market closed for three days on account of flooding and a holiday, playing catch down with peers in the region. Jakarta, KL and Thailand indexes suffered cumulative declines of 8.8 pc, 3.8 pc and 6.8 pc over four days since the ...

Philippines:Typhoon, monsoon, floods
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 21 Aug 2013

Financial markets remained closed for the third straight day as a public holiday today followed two days of heavy rains and severe flooding in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces.  Storm Maring (international name, Trami) dumped over a month's volume of rains in the south of Manila yesterday s...

SONA: Unsonorous But Sound
PHILIPPINES · Report · 23 Jul 2013

The annual reporting must have become a chore by now and it showed in a bland speech lasting almost two hours. Hailed by supporters but slammed by critics, President Benigno Aquino’s midterm State of the Nation Address (SONA) yesterday before a joint session of the 16th Congress was in substance ...

Markets Stirred; Economy Will Chug Along
PHILIPPINES · Report · 14 Jun 2013

Just two weeks after the government announced much-better-than-expected 7.8% GDP growth in 1Q2013, which bucked the regional growth slowdown, local stock prices grabbed headlines with the worst one-day dive since the Lehman crisis in October 2008.Many were stunned by the steep fall, especially fo...

Monetary authorities kept policy stance accommodative
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 13 Jun 2013

Monetary authorities kept policy stance accommodative amid outflow of capital from the region.  On balance, recent global financial developments positive for the Philippines providing breathing room for overbought financial markets (peso depreciated, interest rates up, stock prices down).  If sus...