Saying that limited competition would result in a near-monopoly in the telecom sector, the President noted that monopolies were inherently inefficient and asserted that his administration would look after the interests of the public, phone subscribers in particular in this case.

“There are complaints from other players in the telecom sector. There are many technical aspects so I have asked the NTC and DOST to look into the allegations,” Aquino said on his arrival from Thailand Friday night.

“The portion that I remember has to deal with the allocated frequencies being adjacent to each other providing an undue advantage. It seems that costs will be so severely cut by this purported merger that nobody else would be able to compete,” he added.

The President said he had received a document “half an inch thick” that detailed the observations and complaints of the other stakeholders in the telecom industry.

“I am waiting for the NTC and DOST to come up with their findings on whether or not it will limit competition,” Aquino said.

“I was in school when I was first taught that monopolies were inherently inefficient. At the end of the day, what will benefit most Filipinos should be the policy of this administration—should be and will be,” he added.

Originally posted 9:16 pm | Saturday, May 28th, 2011

The euro climbed to $1.4317 by 2100 GMT from $1.4141 in New York late Thursday.

The dollar fell to 80.77 yen from 81.29 yen on Thursday.

The dollar began falling on Thursday after a report showed US jobless claims rose after two weeks of declines.

Washington also left unrevised its estimate of first-quarter economic growth at a tepid 1.8 percent. Most analysts had expected a rise to 2.0 percent.

“The fact that the US GDP data was not revised upwards, contrary to expectations, and that the initial jobless claims are rising notably again, was not good news for the dollar,” said analysts at Commerzbank.

“In the end that means the Fed will wait much longer before it begins to consider a normalisation of the currently ultra-expansionary monetary policy.”

The US Federal Reserve has kept rates at zero since December 2008 to boost economic recovery while the European Central Bank hiked its rates by a quarter point in April and is expected to do so again soon, proving a boost to the euro.

In Europe, Greece held emergency talks on tough new economic reforms under the gun of a new IMF debt warning and a looming risk of bankruptcy.

However, Prime Minister George Papandreou failed to secure a consensus on further austerity measures and 50 billion euros in privatisations, as the IMF seems likely to withhold a vital instalment of rescue money.

The IMF and EU have been looking for political consensus on pursuing the tough financial measures as Greece has so far had difficulty implementing steps needed to bring its finances back into balance.

That has pushed investors toward currencies seen as a safe-haven, such as the Swiss franc, which rose to fresh records against the dollar and the euro.

The dollar stood at 0.8488 Swiss francs, down from 0.8655 the day before.

“The greenback fell to a record low against the Swiss Franc which suggests that even though investors are bailing out of the low yielding currency and buying higher yielding ones, they are still very nervous,” said Kathy Lien of Global Forex Trading.

The pound was at $1.6511 (1.6393).

Sue Trinh at Royal Bank of Canada said trading was likely to remain choppy with volume thin as markets in London and New York will be closed for holidays on Monday.

Except for the Board of Investments, the other IPAs, namely Clark Development Corp. (CDC), Philippine Economic Zone Authority and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) suffered setbacks in FDI applications. SBMA and CDC registered the highest declines of 93.7 and 92 percent, respectively.

The United States led all other countries with investment pledges of P6.7 billion, accounting for 30.6 percent of total approved FDI during the quarter.

This was followed by Japan and Korea with P4.7 billion or 21.5 percent, and P3.8 billion or 17.5 percent, respectively.

Despite the decrease in FDI, the combined approved investments of foreign and Filipino nationals reached P161.9 billion in the first quarter of 2011, up 76.5 percent from last year’s P91.8 billion.

Filipino nationals more than made up for the decrease in FDIs by committing P139.9 billion in investments for the first quarter of 2011, more than three times the P45.1 billion committed a year ago.

NSCB secretary general Romulo A. Virola said in a phone interview that speculative price increases in commodities, particularly oil, due to crises in several parts of the world might have made investors “uncertain” about overseas expansion. He noted a recent survey by the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed waning investor confidence in the second quarter of 2011.

“Investors may have started feeling the uncertainties as early as the first quarter. The biggest drops were from Japan and Korea, although the FDIs from the US doubled. Filipino investors seemed to have more confidence in general than their foreign counterparts, partly because of their belief in the present administration, but the latest central bank survey also shows some easing in the confidence level,” Virola said.

Raymundo J. Talento, director of the NSCB’s economic statistics office, said that FDI levels also came from a high base in 2010. “FDI levels often fluctuate, anyway, unlike commodities which can sustain price hikes due to continuous demand,” Talento said.

Manufacturing remained the top FDI recipient as it stood to receive 76.1 percent of the total approved commitments.

However, the amount of P16.8 billion intended to fund manufacturing projects was 60.9-percent lower than last year’s P42.9 billion.

Trailing far behind were administrative and support service activities at P1.8 billion or 8.2 percent, and real estate activities at P1.5 billion or 6.7 percent worth of investment commitments.

Foreign and Filipino ventures approved by the four major IPAs in the first three months of 2011 were expected to create 41,205 jobs, or 1.5-percent higher than last year’s projected employment of 40,612.

Out of the total expected jobs, 79.1 percent or 32,582 jobs would come from investments with foreign interest while the remaining 20.9 percent or 8,623 are from Filipino investors.

Keppel Philippines Holdings Inc. said it had sold its 72-percent stake in Keppel Cebu Shipyard Land Inc. (KCSLI) to SMC Shipping and Lighterage Corp.

KCSLI is a company that owns pieces of land and land improvements leased to Keppel Cebu Shipyard Inc. Keppel Philippines is a subsidiary of Singapore’s Keppel Corp. Ltd.

Keppel Holdings said it sold KCSLI because it no longer had operations on the property that the company owned.

The shares in KCSLI, held by Keppel Holdings’ unit Goodsoil Marine Realty Inc., will be sold for a total of P596.2 million.

“It was arrived at on a willing-buyer-and-willing-seller basis, taking into account the fair market value of the property and the buyer’s strategic interest in the property,” Keppel Holdings said in a disclosure.

SMC Shipping is the cargo handling, warehousing and shipping service provider to the San Miguel group. The company said the acquisition was meant to “expand its business interests,” but did not elaborate.

SMC is the biggest food and beverage conglomerate in Southeast Asia. Among its core subsidiaries are San Miguel Brewery Inc., Ginebra San Miguel Inc., San Miguel Pure Foods Co. Inc. and San Miguel Yamamura Packaging Corp.

The SMC group, led by chair Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. and run by president Ramon S. Ang, has been diversifying into heavy industries such as power generation and infrastructure to add to its growth drivers as revenues from traditional sources plateau.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index added 43.95 points or 1.04 percent to finish at 4,274.51.

The mining/oil counter outperformed for the day, rising 4.82 percent on the back of gains made by Philex as well as Lepanto “A” (open only to local investors) and “B” (open to both local and foreign).

Aboitiz Power, PLDT, Universal Robina, Energy Development Corp., DMCI, Megaworld and SM Investments also led the index higher for the day. Non-index stocks Leisure and Resorts and Philodrill also gained in heavy trade.

Only the financial counter traded in the red as banking stocks like Metrobank succumbed to profit-taking. Investors also pocketed gains from AGI, Ayala Land and Cebu Air.

Value turnover amounted to P4.77 billion. There were 71 advancers, beating 48 decliners while 49 stocks were unchanged. Doris C. Dumlao

“The projection (7 to 8 percent growth) was made prior to the events in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, and the disasters in Japan,” BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. told reporters on Friday.

“We shouldn’t be surprised if growth will be lower than the projection.”

Before the political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa and the earthquake in Japan, which triggered a tsunami and nuclear meltdown of an atomic facility, the Philippine government had said that it saw no need to change its growth target for this year.

But events overseas have since prompted the BSP to acknowledge that there could be a shortfall in growth this year.

Global oil prices have been rising due to the political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, and this is expected to somehow dampen spending for non-oil and non-essential products.

The disaster in Japan may also lead to lower-than-expected Philippine exports this year.

Tetangco stressed, however, that the adverse impact of the events abroad would only be felt this year.

He said growth of at least 7 percent could again be attainable in the years ahead.

“The impact is on the short term; the medium and long-term projection is positive [as far as hitting the 7 to 8 percent target is concerned],” Tetangco said.

The new project, Greenbelt Hamilton, is a 31-story tower that will rise on Legaspi Street, Legaspi Village, a short walk from the upscale Greenbelt 5 mall and the corporate offices along Ayala. The residential units are expected to be turned over to buyers by 2016.

Greenbelt Hamilton, which was launched Thursday night, is a modern skyscraper designed in shades of blue and white, matching the sky. It offers a total of 425 studio, executive studio and two-bedroom suites. Most units feature balconies.

Prices start at P2.9 million for a 28.3-square-meter studio unit with balcony, P4.3 million for a 41-sqm executive studio and P5.7 million for a 54.6-sqm two-bedroom unit with balcony.

Megaworld continues to offer affordable payment schemes as monthly amortization starts at a low P12,000 for a studio and P20,000 for a two-bedroom unit.

“We couldn’t have chosen a better time frame to launch this project due to the renewed optimism in the Philippine economy. Real estate remains one of the economy’s growth drivers, and projects such as Greenbelt Hamilton will certainly boost business activity in the financial district,” Megaworld vice president for marketing and project head Clifford Legaspi said.

Legaspi said in an interview that Megaworld was targeting to sell all the residential units available in Greenbelt Hamilton, the company’s 15th residential tower in Makati, within the next seven months.

Given the project’s prime location, Megaworld would be targeting “doctors, executives, entrepreneurs, young professionals and investors” for Greenbelt Hamilton, Legaspi said.

He said superior location and easy financial schemes were the biggest selling points of Megaworld’s projects in Makati. His group’s biggest competitor, Legaspi said, would likewise be other sales groups within Megaworld offering residential units in other areas like Fort Bonifacio Global City. Doris C. Dumlao

BDO also hopes to launch in a few weeks its offering of subordinated notes valued at around P5 billion, BDO president Nestor Tan yesterday said. This is part of the bank’s P15-billion tier 2 fund-raising scheme for the next 12 months.

Foreign banks Deutsche Bank and HSBC were mandated to arrange the first tranche of the tier 2 offering, Tan said.

In a briefing ahead of the bank’s annual stockholders meeting, Tan said a diversified and sustainable income stream should fuel the bank’s growth this year. The sustained growth in net interest and fee-based income is seen to compensate for the expected decline in trading gains.

BDO’s lending portfolio this year may expand at a moderate pace. In 2010, gross customer loans expanded by 15 percent to P541.5 billion.

The bank’s consolidated resources hit the P1-trillion mark at end-2010, the first Philippine bank to reach this milestone.

According to MPIC chair Manuel V. Pangilinan, the acquisition of “right of way,” or privately owned land that has to be bought to make way for infrastructure projects—historically has been a government function.

But the Department of Justice earlier this year said that private investors would have to be the ones to pay for “right of way” in unsolicited projects.

“All we want are clear ground rules. If they want the private company to spend for the right of way, the government has to be flexible when it comes to tariffs,” Pangilinan said on Friday.

The DoJ opinion affects MPIC’s proposed P27-billion “connector road” project that will link the North Luzon Expressway and Metro Manila Skyway.

The “right of way” acquisition will jack up the project price by another P7 billion, and this will have to be passed on to consumers through higher toll rates. The ruling will also affect infrastructure projects by other companies, Pangilinan pointed out.

“No private company will invest in a project if there are no returns,” he said.

The project will be implemented through FDC’s wholly owned subsidiary, FDC Utilities, which expects to invest about $1.8 billion to build the “greenfield” power portfolio. This was based on the estimated cost of building an LNG power plant of $1 million a MW, excluding further investment needed for gas terminals.

“The investment will form the third leg of the FDC conglomerate within the next five years,” FDC president Lourdes Josephine Gotianun-Yap said during the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting Friday. Power is seen eventually accounting for at least 33 percent to as much as 40 percent of FDC’s businesses, thereby complementing its two other core businesses of real estate (Filinvest Land Inc.) and banking (East West Bank).

Apart from the “greenfield” power projects, or those that will be built from scratch, Gotianun-Yap said the conglomerate would be interested to participate in the bidding for state-owned power generation assets to be auctioned by Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.

The diversification into the power business will mark FDC’s re-entry into the infrastructure and utilities business after divesting its interest in East Asia Power Resources in the 1990s.

The new power plants would be built in strategic sites across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, FDC Utilities president Jesus Alcordo said. “Our target is to have the power plants we’re putting up operational by 2014 to 2015,” he said.

Alcordo, a veteran in the power sector, said the group decided on LNG as the fuel for its upcoming power plants because it was a more efficient and environment-friendly option. The LNG-fueled plants, he said, would have less carbon dioxide emissions. While LNG itself would be slightly more expensive than coal, he said the capital cost to put up an LNG-fired plant would be much lower at around $1 to $1.1 million a MW.

The investment in new power plants would be the first phase of FDC’s diversification into infrastructure and utilities, Alcordo added. The second phase would be the distribution of clean gas to fuel the transport sector like buses, which he said should help in promoting environment-friendly fuel.

Alcordo said FDC was in the final stages of acquiring the sites needed to build the power plants while gas supply contracts should be firmed up by June.
The power projects are in anticipation of a projected surge in electricity demand across the country. He said Luzon would likely face a power supply shortage by 2013 to 2014 while Mindanao was also in need of additional capacity.