Philippines Financial News

New Zealand's immigration numbers have hit an all-time high, enabling employers to fill jobs but also putting pressure on the housing market, according to economists. The net number of immigrants was 110,000 in the year ending August, beating the previous high of 103,000 set a month earlier, according to figures released Wednesday by Statistics New Zealand. The numbers represent a big turnaround after more people left New Zealand than arrived during much of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are talking very, very big numbers for a small economy like ours,” said Jarrod Kerr, chief economist at Kiwibank. Kerr said the surge likely reflected pent-up demand that had built during the pandemic. He said it had come as a relief to employers, who last year were having great difficulty finding skilled workers to fill vacant roles. New Zealand's unemployment rate remains at a relatively low 3.6 per cent.

sugarcane and key ingredient for ethanol productions — as it expects a decline in sugar production in the upcoming season, senior officials said. The curbs on exports are expected to boost the availability of molasses for domestic distilleries, which will help them meet the government's ethanol blending target, said an officer on condition of anonymity. India witnessed the driest August in 122 years with rainfall during the month being 36% below average, causing damage to the sugarcane crop in key cane-producing states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka. In August, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) released its preliminary estimate of sugar production for the 2023-24 season at 317 lakh tonnes against 328 lakh tonnes for the current season. The sugar year starts in October and ends in September next year. However, ISMA said it is expected to come out with a more accurate estimate after a satellite assessment of the sugarcane plant by mid-October.

 The Indian men’s and women’s chess teams won silver medals at the Asian Games here on Saturday.GM Harika Dronavalli, IM Vaishali Rameshbabu, IM Vantika Agrawal, and WGM Savitha Shri Baskar all won their games in a dominating fashion to beat South Korea 4-0 in the final round to finish with 15 match points.

A Chinese coast guard ship came within a few feet of a Philippine vessel it was trying to block in the disputed South China Sea, signaling a more forceful approach by Beijing in the strategic waterway where tensions are growing. Philippine vessels were attempting to resupply a small detachment of marines on the isolated Second Thomas Shoal when the incident occurred on Wednesday. China also claims the reef, as it does for much of the South China Sea.

MANILA (Reuters) -The Philippines economics minister cautioned on Friday against further raising interest rates, which could hurt consumers already suffering from high inflation.

The Philippines has a long history of trying to attract Filipino American citizens and their families to come and add to the economy

BEIJING — Asia's competitive advantage was once cheap labor. Now, whether it's China, India or Japan, the region's edge lies in industrial services, KKR's heads of global and Asia macro said in an October note.

MANILA (Reuters) — Philippine inflation quickened for a second straight month in September due to increases in food and transport costs, the statistics agency said on Thursday, opening the door to further central bank interest rate hikes.

sepaktakraw at the Asian Games on Monday. The men's side thrashed Singapore 2-0 (21-7, 21-15) in just 38 minutes before beating Philippines 2-0 (21-16, 21-15) at the Jinhua Sports Centre Gymnasium.

MANILA (Reuters) — The Philippines plans to issue its maiden sukuk bonds by the end of November, its finance secretary said, as it seeks to develop alternative funding sources for its budget.

(Reuters) — The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) representing U.S. dockworkers has filed for a chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to resolve a pending litigation with the Oregon affiliate of the International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI).

Agriculture scientist Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan has passed away at the age of 98 on Saturday due to illness, reports said on Thursday. Swaminathan is fondly known as the father of India's green revolution, for his role in helping develop a hybrid wheat seed that allowed Indian farmers to dramatically increase yields and shed external reliance for food grains. Born on August 7, 1925 in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, TIME Magazine named Swaminathan among one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century and one of the only three from India.

NEW DELHI : A push by India and the Philippines to renegotiate their investment agreement is moving slowly, according to persons aware of the matter. The agreement, which was signed in 2000 and came into force in 2001, expired in 2011. New Delhi has called for the agreement to be terminated and replaced by a new Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).

Tata Play has ventured out of India with a white label solution for global OTT aggregators, starting with a project collaboration with Philippines’ leading Pay-Tv provider Cignal TV. India’s leading content distribution platform today launched the Tata Play Binge PaaS for OTT aggregators across the globe, enabling Tata Play to provide end-to-end development and deployment opportunities. «Apart from providing the software architecture, our partner companies will also benefit from Tata Play’s learnings over the years in areas of forging commercial partnerships, recommendation engine, subscription management, analytics, and much more. With the launch of this enterprise solution, we have now created a unique OTT content aggregation and distribution ecosystem,” said Harit Nagpal, Managing Director & CEO of Tata Play. Coming from the house of conglomerate Tata group, Tata Play Binge is an OTT aggregation service that brings content from more than 26 apps in one app. The promoter company now focuses on tying up with various OTT partners and acquiring subscribers in the overseas market.

Army chiefs and senior officers from 30 countries including the United States met in India Tuesday to discuss threats facing the Asia-Pacific region, in the face of concern at an increasingly assertive China. US Army chief Randy George said the region was «critically important», speaking to reporters alongside his Indian counterpart Manoj Pande, and vowed to boost cooperation to «maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific». Generals from Japan and Australia, which make up the «Quad» defence cooperation forum alongside Washington and New Delhi, also took part, as did Britain and France. As the generals met, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Beijing would oppose the «wanton expansion of military alliances», the latest in a string of warnings as Washington deepens security ties in the Asia-Pacific. Beijing has long said that any effort to establish a NATO-like military alliance in the Asia-Pacific would provoke conflict. Nations present at the two-day conference in New Delhi included Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which have longstanding pending territorial disputes with China. The conference, which launched in 1999, brings together army chiefs and top officers from 30 countries. India's Pande said the region faced challenges on both land and at sea. «These range from territorial disputes over land masses, or in some cases, even over artificially expanded islands to acquire real estate and establish military bases,» Pande added, in an indirect reference to China. India has also had to balance its traditional alliance with Russia — the provider of most of its arms imports, and now a source of cut-price oil — with growing ties to Washington. «The partnership between India and the US armies is vital for

SBI Remit, part of Asian fintech powerhouse SBI, has been tapping Ripple for its international money transfer service since 2017.In 2021 it began using XRP as a bridge between two fiat currencies to perform cross border remittances from Japan to a digital wallet in the Philippines. From this month, the effort will be expanded to bank accounts in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

When Reddy and his wife, Chandra Gangareddy, immigrants from southern India, settled in the Des Moines suburbs in September 2004, they could count the number of Indian American families on one hand. Only one Indian American had ever served in Congress at the time, and none had dared to mount a bid for the White House. Now, for the first time in the nation's history, two Indian Americans — Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy — are serious presidential contenders who regularly invoke their parents' immigrant roots.

Philippines said on Tuesday there were no signs of a standoff at a fiercely contested, China-held shoal in the South China Sea, a day after its coastguard severed a floating barrier installed by Beijing to block its fishermen. China's coastguard had even removed remnants of the ball-buoy barrier from the Scarborough Shoal, a Philippine coastguard spokesperson said, adding Beijing was measured in its response to the presence of the vessel, which reached its closest point to the strategic atoll since China seized it in 2012. With coastguard personnel posing as fishermen in a small boat, the Philippines said on Monday it executed a «special operation» to cut the 300-m (980-ft) barrier at the shoal, one of Asia's most contested maritime features, a move that could further strain ties that have deteriorated in the past year. Coastguard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela said four Chinese vessels were in the area when a Philippine ship approached and were «not that aggressive», adding it was clear media were on board the Philippine ship. The Chinese took away the barrier, a few hours after discovering it was no longer aligned and blocking the lagoon, Tarriela told DWPM radio. «They might still return the floating barrier once again, they might still do shadowing and dangerous maneouvres once again,» he told CNN Philippines, adding that the Philippines «will not back down» and will maintain its presence in the sea.

US Polls 2024: Vivek Ramaswamy's Silicon Valley fundraiser dinner to cost ₹41 lakh per ticket. More details here Indian Americans account for around 2.1 million or around 16 percent of the 13.4 million Asian Americans eligible to vote and are the third largest Asian-origin population behind Chinese and Filipino Americans, reported New York Times.

Hong Kong regulators are looking to tighten the noose around the crypto market after arresting six individuals following allegations of fraud around an unlicensed crypto exchange, JPEX. The government intends to increase its efforts to inform investors and remind them only to utilize platforms granted Securities and Futures Commission licenses. 

Just a couple of months ago, emerging-market assets were all the rage as inflation eased and interest rate-cut bets surfaced. The trade has all but fizzled out.