The event roots in Southeast-Asia market with enormous solar and storage potentials since 2016. It acts as a business guide to assist you to look into ASEAN renewable energy markets and identify the key issues in ASEAN’s context. Totally 1200+ participants, 100+ governments/utilities/developers and 50+ medias will gather on the site and to discuss the regional trend and how to facilitate…
Over the course of less than two decades, China has gone from being a minor player to being the world’s largest and most lucrative source of outbound tourists. In 2017 alone Chinese nationals made more than 131m trips outside of their national borders, spending approximately $300bn in the process. The growing volume and financial clout of Chinese tourists presents considerable opportunities…
While 2018 is unlikely to be remembered as a period of cooperation on global trade, the year did end on a note of cautious optimism for its advocates when, at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, the US declared a 90-day truce in its 10-month-long trade war with China. Observers hoped that this ceasefire would endure beyond the proposed three-month timeline and lead to talks between the leaders of the world’s…
While 2018 is unlikely to be remembered as a period of cooperation on global trade, the year did end on a note of cautious optimism for its advocates when, at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, the US declared a 90-day truce in its 10-month-long trade war with China. Observers hoped that this ceasefire would endure beyond the proposed three-month timeline and lead to talks between the leaders of the world’s…
President Rodrigo Duterte emerged invigorated from the May 2019 mid-term elections after his party dominated the polls, marking an endorsement of his policies and the administration’s performance since 2016. Nine out of 12 Senate seats were won by pro-Duterte candidates, with the remaining three taken by independents. The ballot gave the president a mandate to push through constitutional and tax…
The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has long been associated with insurrection, conflict and extremism. Although much of Mindanao has been integrated into the mainstream Philippine economy and political system, the ARMM maintains uneasy relations and resistance to central government authority, which has led to economic isolation and underdevelopment. According to the Philippines Statistics…
With strong economic growth and an expanding portfolio of business opportunities, foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Philippines has been rising steadily in recent years, reaching a record high in 2017. However, a fall in FDI the following year indicates that maintaining investor interest is dependent on a variety of factors, including a regulatory and bureaucratic framework. In 2019 improvements…
In 2018 the Philippines posted a record trade deficit of $41.4bn, the largest gap in the nation’s history. This was a major increase on previous years, compared to $27.4bn in 2017 and $26.7bn in 2016. However, the results from the first few months of 2019 suggest that the deficit is beginning to narrow. In April 2019 the balance of trade in goods decreased year-on-year for the first time that year,…
With financial inclusion a high priority for both the government and retail banks, which are looking to the untapped population to increase their customer base, recent developments in financial technology (fintech) have been greeted with great interest. In particular, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the central bank, is increasingly looking to technology in order to leapfrog some of the current…
The Philippine insurance market appears ripe for consolidation, with some 86 life, non-life and composite insurance firms in operation at end-2018. In an effort to strengthen the sector, the Insurance Commission (IC) is incrementally raising the sector standards, adopting the latest financial reporting standards and increasing risk-based capital requirements. Implementing new requisites has already…
