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• Growth for the first nine months of 2011 was at 3.6 percent, below the lower end of the whole year target of 4.5 percent.   
• Debt problems of trading partners, low government spending, decline in agriculture and fishing due to unfavourable weather and the high cost of fuel were factors that contributed to the relatively low growth.
• Consumer Spending and the Services sector help save the domestic economy, the latter recording 1.2 percent growth for the third quarter from 2.8 percent in the previous quarter, as all subsectors recorded positive growth.
• Government believes there are more favorable prospects for the fourth quarter of 2011 due to: anticipated higher demand on account of the Yuletide and harvest seasons; a more stable macroeconomy; a broadly steady consumer sentiment; the continued inflows of remittances from Filipinos overseas; the reported higher level of business confidence relative to the previous quarter; and the full implementation of the PhP72 billion Disbursement Acceleration Program of the government. 

• Budget Deficit

• The Philippines recorded a budget deficit of P52.994 billion from January to September this year, about 80% lower than the P234.350-billion programmed for the period. 
• Year-on-year, revenues posted a 13.68% increase in the whole third quarter. Year-to-date revenues now reached the trillion-peso mark at P1.017 trillion as against last year’s P894.716 billion.
• The government’s catch-up spending continues to reflect on the fiscal numbers as September expenditures further sped up with interest payments continuously going down.
• As of the third quarter, government spending reached P1.017 trillion, 7.31% lower year-on-year. Much of the decrease however can be traced to interest payments, which declined 9.04%, while actual spending was only down by 6.85%.

• Inflation / Interest rates

• Average inflation for Q3 2011, went down to 4.4 percent from the previous quarter’s rate of 4.5 percent. From January to October 2011, inflation rate stood at 4.5 percent, within the 3.0 to 5.0 percent target for the year.
• The rise in the October inflation was due mainly to higher prices of most food items, notably vegetables and fish, which reflected the agricultural damages wrought by typhoons Pedring and Quiel. The upward adjustments in electricity and water rates also contributed to the higher inflation during the month. 
• The Monetary Board decided to maintain the BSP RRP and RP rates at 4.5 and 6.5 percent

• Foreign Direct Investments

• Total FDI approved in the third quarter of 2011 by the four major investment promotion agencies (BOI, CDC, PEZA and SBMA) amounted to PhP 25.0 billion, 32.0 percent higher than the PhP 19.0 billion committed in the same period last year.  Meanwhile, total approved FDI for the first nine months of 2011 amounted to PhP 87.3 billion, an increase of 9.9 percent from last year’s PhP 79.4 billion.  Top prospective investing countries include Japan, Korea, and the US.  
• Manufacturing remained as top recipient of FDI commitments as it stands to receive PhP 9.6 billion. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning came in second at PhP 5.1 billion, followed by real estate activities at PhP 4.8 billion.

• Net Portfolio Investments

• Transactions for the first 10 months of the year resulted in net inflows of US$3.4 billion, or growth of 37.3 percent from the US$2.5 billion recorded a year ago. Registered investments in PSE-listed securities amounted to US$7.4 billion, up by 9.6 percent compared to US$6.7 billion last year.
• Transactions for the month of October yielded net inflows of US$237 million, 58.6 percent higher than the US$150 million level for September 2011 but 78.2 percent lower than the US$1.1 billion recorded in 2010. 
• Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, and Luxembourg were the top five investor countries for the month.
• Year-to-date, of all equities markets in the Asia-Pacific region, only the Philippines is up (+1.4% year-to-date). The PSE is the sixth-best performing exchange in the world so far in 2011.

• Remittances

• Remittances from overseas Filipinos coursed through banks remained robust in September 2011 at US$1.7 billion, registering an 8.4 percent year-on-year increment. The steady growth in remittance flows through September this year resulted in a cumulative year-on-year expansion of 7.1 percent to reach US$14.8 billion.
• For the nine-month period, the top ten country sources of remittances included the U.S., Canada, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., Japan, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Italy, Germany and Norway. The remittance flows from these countries amounted to USD$12.5 billion, which represented 84.9 percent of total remittances reported by banks.
• Remittances from the UK for January-September 2011 increased by 7.52%

Jan – Sep 2011 (in USD)

2011                                       2010                                       Growth Rate %

707,688,000                         658,194,000                         7.52

• Gross International Reserves

• The country’s GIR as of end-October 2011 stood at US$75.8 billion, higher by US$0.6 billion compared to the end-September 2011 GIR. The appreciable build-up in the reserves level at end-October 2011 resulted mainly from the foreign exchange operations and income from investments abroad of the BSP as well as revaluation gains on the BSP’s gold holdings. 
• The preliminary end-October 2011 GIR could cover 11.2 months worth of imports of goods and payments of services and income.  It was also equivalent to 10.6 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 6.4 times based on residual maturity

• Exports / Imports

• Total exports receipts for the January-to-September period declined by 3.1 percent to US$37.185 billion in 2011 from US$38.362 billion in the comparative nine-month period in 2010.
• Exports are now projected to grow by five percent and imports by 13 percent this year.
• UK Total

(Jan – Jun, in millions USD)

                     2011                                          2010

Export        Import     BOT              Export      Import    BOT             

Continue reading »]]> The Foreign & Commonwealth Office have just published a very good report about the impact of the global economic turbulence on SE Asia. It considers the position on all the countries in SE Asia, including The Philippines. The report starts by likening the Greek potential debt default and the global economic situation to two dogs.

“Imagine two dogs barking at SE Asia; either may bite. Greece’s potential debt default is akin to a Yorkshire terrier, fierce, noisy, and at the centre of attention. A nip hurts, but is not fatal. The risk of a Western double-dip is the Alsatian. Muzzled for a while, threatening once more, and a bigger threat to SE Asia.”

There are several performance charts and a comprehensive collection of statistics and assessments.

Read the full report HERE.

Continue reading »]]> Advorto appoints HURIS as Country Partner

for the Philippines and Vietnam

Advorto, one of Europe’s leading vendors of Recruitment Management Systems, has today appointed the Philippines based, Human Resource Innovations and Solutions, Inc. (“HURIS“), an HR Solutions Provider, as its exclusive Country Partner in the Philippines and Vietnam. HURIS will now manage Advorto’s Distribution Partner Programme and will distribute and support Advorto’s systems in those territories.

HURIS specializes in providing organisations with high-level technological solutions, outsourcing and consultancy services across all functional areas of Human Resources. HURIS’ President Ramon S. Medina, former President of the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP), and Chair Oscar L. Contreras, who is current Chair of the PMAP Council of Presidential Advisers, said “Advorto’s online recruitment systems offer an outstanding level of technical sophistication that will help improve the competitiveness of organisations that use this service. HURIS has the expertise to advise its clients how to optimise these systems for their HR needs and to help Advorto build and support an effective distribution network in the Philippines and Vietnam.”

Established in 1998, UK based Advorto has built over 200 recruitment management systems and is now a leading specialist for SaaS systems for large organisations. Its partnership with HURIS is part of Advorto’s initiative to distribute

its systems throughout South East Asia. Advorto Founder Mike McClelland said “We are very pleased to announce this partnership with HURIS. They have a strong management team with extensive HR experience and contacts that will help our clients and distributors in the Philippines and Vietnam leverage their human capital to maximum effect using Advorto’s systems.”

More information about Advorto and HURIS can be found at www.advorto.com and www.huris.com.ph.

The PBBC was pleased to be able to help Advorto in the search for a suitable partner in the Philippines. This service is available to UK companies seeking to identify appropriate partners in The Philippines. For further information please email us at info@philippinebritish.com

Continue reading »]]> The Philippine Trade and Investment Office in London has issued a number of documents relating to upcoming PPP projects in the Philippines. This includes the latest PPP Information Kit this office is distributing to UK companies interested in Philippine PPP.

The documents are

 PPP General Information Sheet

NAIA Expressway Project  (Preliminary Infromation Memorandum)

Daang Hari-SLEX Link Road Project (Invitation to Pre-qualify and bid)

Click on any of the document titles to see the document.

The NAIA Expressway Project

Continue reading »]]> Stars past and present from TV’s hospital soap Holby City converged on the Philippine Embassy in London’s West End this week for the opening of a unique art exhibition by one of their own. 

Since leaving Holby 18 months ago Rebecca Grant (aka Sister Daisha Anderson) who is distantly related to the Royal Family – her great grandmother was Ernestine Bowes-Lyon – has been busy re-inventing herself as an artist and singer as well as continuing with a busy acting career. 

Now she has emerged after long hours in her studio following in the footsteps of her late grandfather who was a highly thought of contemporary artist in France. 

However, she has chosen as subject matter for her art work a collection of which has been produced over the past ten years – the environment she knows best – the theatre. Her exhibition is made up of scenes from productions she has appeared in and portraits of fellow thespians who have starred with her. These include work from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Bombay Dreams’ and London’s west end production of ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ starring Christian Slater.

 And for Robert Powell, one of the ex-Holby stars attending her opening night of the exhibition, there was a surprise in store. 

Highlight of the opening night was his unveiling of a new and previously unseen painting by Rebecca. As he unveiled the latest work to come from the pallet of his former co-star though he realised for the first time that he was the subject. 

Powell is the only Holby star Rebecca has so far committed to canvas. 

After the unveiling she said : “I worked very closely with Robert when I was in Holby and admired him immensely. It seemed only right that I should paint a portrait of him.” 

And Powell commented :  “I had no idea just how talented Rebecca was as an artist, as well as an on screen actor.  Nobody has ever done a portrait of me before. It’s a great likeness.”

Rebecca Grant

 Her exhibition “An Actor’s Art” runs until 15 July at The Philippine Embassy, 10 Suffolk St. Visit www.byrebeccagrant.carbonmade.com for times and details

Continue reading »]]> The Philippines Government has published an information sheet concerning 7 PPP Projects for 2011. Details of the tendering process and details of each project can be found in the information sheet.

The 7 infrastructure projects are:

LRT Line 2 East Extension Project

New Bohol Airport

Puerto Princesa Airport

Development of City Terminal for DMIA

Privatisation of Laguindingan Airport Operation and Maintenance

Supply of Treated Bulk Water for Metro Manila

Daraga International Airport

Follow this link for the PPP General Information Sheet.

Continue reading »]]> The latest Newsletter ( No. 11) from the Philippines Trade Office in London.

Read the newsletter here

Articles include: