Homegrown fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp. continues to extend its presence in China as it recently acquired one of the local beef noodle there. In its disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Jollibee said it will be investing RMB30 million ($4.39 million) to secure 55 percent stake on the San Pin Wang restaurant chain.
Another RMB20 [...]

Cebu City can expect additional boost in its tourism industry as the Shanghai Airlines launched its maiden direct chartered flights to Shanghai from Cebu starting Wednesday. It will be a twice-weekly shuttle that is expected to bring in an estimated 9,000 additional Chinese tourists to Central Philippines annually.
The charter group will also go out to [...]

The Philippine National Bank (PNB) signed up an agreement with the Bank of China (BOC) in handling remittances of Italy-based Chinese nationals to their homeland. The Lucio Tan-led PNB’s agreement with the state-owned BOC expands the market coverage of unit PNB Italy SpA which was established to facilitate remittances of thousands of Filipinos in Italy.
PNB [...]

A Chinese company is looking to invest in the renewable energy in the Philippines. The Wahaha Group Co. Ltd. is mulling to add to its investment in the country, an ethanol plant. The company earlier announced its interest for a joint venture in a fruit juice processing plant.
Mariz Agbon, president of the Philippine Agribusiness Development [...]

International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) is venturing into the overseas bond market. The port operator will be seen in the next few days offering as much as $250 million worth of 10-year bonds. ICTSI would be the first non-bank Philippine corporate issuer to offer the overseas bond market.

The country’s largest operator of mall chains, SM Prime Holdings Inc., is yet on another expansion as it announced its plan to start the construction of its new shopping mall located within the 240-hectare South Road Properties (SRP) in Cebu 2010.
According to SM Prime chief financial officer Jeffrey Lim, the proposed shopping center will be [...]

Food and beverage conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) recently completed the $300-million sale of the international beer business to its flagship unit San Miguel Brewery (SMB) Inc.  Both San Miguel and SMB reported to the Philippines Stock Exchange, separately, the closing of the deal. It marked the completion of the spin-off of all the conglomerate’s [...]

Foreign companies are looking at the Philippines as possible investment target in their search raw materials for infrastructure projects. Investors from India and China want to prepare for the global economic recovery and thus are exploring the possibility of investing in the mining industry in the country.

Online games always a ready audience in the Filipino market. There is a big market for Filipino online gamers, although most the games were created outside the country. A group of Filipinos with entrepreneurial mindset is eyeing to cash in on this online gaming craze capturing Filipinos from all walks of like.

The Terminator will visit the Philippines next year, but he won’t be here to promote nor shoot any film. Instead, the California Governor will be leading a group of US business delegation who will visit the country in February as part of the government’s marketing efforts to expand the market of Philippine exports and industries.

The joint venture partnership between San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and Kirin Holdings Company, Ltd., the San Miguel Brewery Inc., will acquire the international beer business from SMC.
In its disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, SMB and SMBI has signed a share purchase agreement to acquire San Miguel Brewing International Ltd. (SMBIL), San Miguel’s international beer [...]

The country’s oldest mining company, Benguet Corp., gets a new leash of life as it entered into a financing agreement with a Chinese company. The listed Benguet Corp. has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with MinMetals International (HK) Ltd. which would allow them to resume the exploration activity at its King-king project in Pantukan, [...]

To allow local residents more opportunities to spend more time talking with their families and friends abroad, Globe Telecom has reduced its international voice and text rates to major destinations by as much as 87%.

I-Remit Inc. continues to expand its presence all over the world. This time, the Filipino-owned non-bank remittance company has acquired a license to do business in Europe. The company said it received a copy of a letter which came from Banca D’ Italia Eurosistema advising of the registration of iRemit Europe in the general list [...]

Another SM Mall will soon rise in Cavite, the fourth mall in this province. The SM Prime Holdings, Inc. (SM Prime) will soon open the SM City Rosario, the 36th SM Mall in the country. Other SM malls in the province are SM City Bacoor, SM City Dasmariñas, and SM Center Molino.
SM Prime president Hans [...]

China Banking Corporation (Chinabank) was ordered by the Supreme Court (SC) to pay the Bureau of Internal Revenues (BIR) its deficiency documentary stamp taxes worth around P11.3 million. The taxes were for the special savings deposits (SSDs) which were made to appear like tax-exempt regular savings accounts.

The credit card servicing arm of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., Bankard, Inc., has signed a deal with China UnionPay (CUP), the lone national bank card payment network in China based in Shanghai. The agreement will allow local retailers to take advantage of the growing number of Chinese tourist in the country.

The Philippines received more international assistance for the victims of tropical storm Ondoy. This time, it’s from the European Commission (EC), the executive arm of the European Union, who has given 2 million euros or equivalent to about P140 million. This is so far the biggest amount of international help that the country has received.

Local tile manufacturer Mariwasa Siam Ceramics Inc. was recently awarded by the Department of Energy two certificates of registration for its biomass project, which will make use of biomass residues such as rice husk, saw dust and coconut husk in power generation. The DOE said Mariwasa will make use of the biomass gasification technology, where [...]

The recent onslaught of typhoon Ondoy has brought immeasurable damage to the Philippines. The storm has left many of countrymen homeless and hungry, and Ondoy didn’t spare anybody as it water engulfs flush villages who weren’t prone to flooding before.
Filipinos have been busy on various social networks – Twitter, Facebook, Multiply and more, updating others [...]