Washington-based International Finance Corp. (IFC) of the World Bank Group has introduced financing support for Philippine banks that will lend to climate adaptation and mitigation projects amid a push for “green” recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic to generate trillions of dollars in fresh investments. “The program, ‘Scaling Up Climate Finance through the Financial Sector,’ is…
Banks will face an environment of accelerated innovation this year after investing resources to account for last year’s business model changes that were forced on the industry by the coronavirus pandemic, an international consulting firm said over the weekend. In a recently published study, Accenture said the financial services industry was forced to make years’…
The Department of Agriculture (DA) is welcoming the new year with a new framework and renewed hopes that restructuring the agency will help it achieve its annual agriculture growth target of 2.5 percent. Agriculture Secretary William Dar, who has been steering the agency in new directions forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, recently launched the “One…
The good news is that after a horrible 2020, when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic wreaked havoc on the global economy, this year will be better. The Philippines is expected to exit an economic recession with the reopening of businesses and the rollout of COVID-19 vaccine to a critical mass of the population, which should shore…
MANILA, Philippines — After a nerve-wracking year marked by an unprecedented lockdown to contain a coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, investors are looking forward to a recovery in corporate earnings and stock prices this 2021. The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) may rebound to 7,878 this year on the back of a 39.7 percent recovery in…
As the year 2020 came to a close, it was time for businesses to count their wins or losses. And in a year like no other, there were clear winners and losers in telecommunications, media, transport and infrastructure. First were telecoms, which soared as demand for data—already a desired service—exploded during the COVID-19 lockdown. This…
The year 2020 was not for the faint-hearted investor as a black swan in the form of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic prompted governments to shut down borders and impose tough local quarantine protocols, wreaking havoc on the global economy and causing a stock market shakeout. The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended the year…
The latest tally shows that the new coronavirus has caused the death of about 1.46 million people worldwide, including at least 8,300 in the Philippines. But the casualty count can also be reckoned in terms of business entities. According to a survey done by the World Bank in partnership with the Department of Finance and…
In a country where the government’s response to any crisis is often, for one reason or another, inadequate and found wanting, the responsibility for marshaling resources to bridge the gap between what is available and what is needed often falls on the shoulders of the private sector. And the current pandemic—arguably the biggest public health…
These days, it seems, anything and everything can be found and bought online and brought to one’s doorstep. What enable this are the ubiquity of smartphones, the availability of internet connection and the swarms of motorcycles and utility vehicles, thanks to low interest rates over the past few years. The same few years before the…